Great New Rum Book !

[JOHN REEKIE]

"The Barbadian Rum Shop"- by Peter Laurie.

I Just discovered that Macmillan-Caribbean, publishers,England, In Novrember 2001, had published this new book on rum. Well not on rum but rum shops and its people. I just came across the book last week and after Emails to England I found a copy here in a book store in Toronto. I flipped through it once and headed to the cash desk.

"The Barbadian Rum Shop" is just that , its the sole of caribbean village life, its the community institution along with the church. Its a place for politics, news, cricket scores, dominoes and the serving of local food to children on credit while their parents are working. and for drinking rum and beer after a days work.

This book is all Bajan culture and architecture... It only has Bajan rum and beer...only has two recipes, rum punch and rum cake... does not have long aged rums....nor fancy drinks with ice and paper umbrellers in hurricane glasses.   What it does have is a short history of barbados rum.... 112 pages of colour phortographs of different local architectural vernacular styles of three door wood buildings. (generaly) with a counter ,back shelves and a glass cabinet for food storage ,to keep the flys out.

Rum shops of different ages of repair all decorated or held together with distillery enameled painted metal plaques of the three distilleries or the brewery. Some are painted on all visible sides like a nascar race car with advertising surounding the whole rum shop building. Other shops just painted in Terretorial distillery colours as if to stake out properties.

You soon learn that drinks ,ie rum or gin. are not sold by the glass but by the individual bottle. in 'minis' or 'flasks' or 'pints',while there might be some fullsize bottles on the top shelf. 'Pints' are only found in island rum shops.

Do I like the book, what do you think. You might not like it, but this is true Caribbean Culture. What I do not like is that the map is just a token map and does not show where all the rumshops are located. This could have been done with using page numbers as references. Alao that the cake recipes could have been in Bajan dialect.

Contact your local independant bookseller:- ISBN. 0.333.79390.0 aprox $21.50 us

Contact Macmillan:-  www.macmillan-caribbean.com/books/general interest

You can also buy electronicaly from the publisher ,just check through the web site for information.

 

John Reekie

[JOHN REEKIE]

Ed ... If you are heading down to Barbados for the-  "Rum Fest 2002" next month - check out "The Barbadian Rum Shop" in the Bridgetown Book shops. If you like it (or not) maybe you can review it for the forum.

And for thoes looking at the Macmillian-Caribbean.com web site , look at their guide books. Macmillians are well known for their island by island guides writen by local authors. So the guides are full of caribean sites etc without mentioning the hotel circuits and being too touristy.  Also if traveling to the islands buy (order) your Macmillan Guides before you go as they always seem to be sold out when you get there. Look for the catalogue of other interesting island books for example - Railways of the Caribbean. Bet you did not know a lot of islands had railways and some still use railways.

John Reekie. as always,  RUMSEARCHING

[Bolivar Petit Corona]

How much info on Cuban rum?  :confused:

[JOHN REEKIE]

Warning:- There is no Cuban rum in the contents of this Bajan Rum book.

For the Forum and rum lovers I went to the trouble to review a book called The BARBADIAN RUM SHOP in my review I clearly mentioned that this was a book about 'Barbados rum' only  & 'Barbadians' only & 'Barbadian Rum Shops' only.    I also went to the trouble of informing the forum members where one would be able to get the book. I do not intend to spend the this amount of time researching  for the forum, then to be asked....How much info on cuban rum?

end of Topic. Good bye

[Bolivar Petit Corona]

Well, excuse the f%$# out of me, I missed that part. :confused:

[Ed Hamilton]

I saw "The Barbadian Rum Shop" some time ago, but since I was in the islands I wasn't that impressed. If you aren't planning on going to the islands you will enjoy this book but if you are heading down island you'll find plenty to love in the rum shops.

If I sound prejudiced I may well be. When I wrote rums of the Eastern Caribbean the only book about rum in the islands was a Macmillan book called "The Barbados Rum Book" which was little more than an advertisement of about 50 or so pages.