The Irony of Rum

Just came back from the Motherland -
the land of rum,
the place where it all comes from.
Where good boys and pirates go when they die.
Specifically, St. Croix, USVI. 
[That damn good bit of poetry was completely accidental, by the way.]

There are two rum distilleries on the island of St. Croix: Captain Morgan and Cruzan. They're located generally at opposite ends of the airport. Cruzan is the older brand and rightfully claims to be the native rum of St. Croix. They've been there for 250 years, although ownership has changed multiple times. "Cruzan" itself is the term used to refer to St. Croix natives, whereas Captain Morgan - a real life historical figure - was the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. There's little to suggest that Morgan, the man, ever stepped foot on St. Croix or that he had any connection to any particular brand of rum. So, two rums, one named after a guy whose connection to St. Croix is tenuous at best and the other a perhaps lesser-known brand with 250 years of history on St. Croix. 

Couldn't contact Cruzan to get reservations for their tour, but we managed to get the tour at Captain Morgan, which is well worth the $10. In addition to a brief walking tour of the facility and explanation of how it's all done, plus a short movie, you get to taste several of the Captain's products. And, THEN you get two rum-based cocktails (your choice from a nice selection). Let me tell ya. . . at 10:00 AM, that's enough to get a good buzz going. Especially when you miss breakfast at the hotel to catch your flight from St. Thomas. The "movie" is really just a compilation of the commercials made for the latest Captain Morgan ad campaign. But, since you will never see these on TV in the U.S. and they're pretty entertaining, sit back with your morning cocktail, ignore the blatant ripoff of Capt. Jack Sparrow, and enjoy.

Rum is essentially fermented molasses, distilled, and then flavored or aged or both. Captain Morgan stresses that their focus is on spiced, NOT aged, rum. They are quite emphatic about it, although they do store their product in barrels for at least some period of time. This technically constitutes "aging," but apparently any effects of this aging are incidental rather than intentional.

Funnily enough, the barrels that they store rum in are used bourbon barrels from distilleries in Kentucky. One simply cannot ignore the fact that a used bourbon barrel will impart a certain quality to the rum - but Captain Morgan does not make aged rum. Just ask 'em. They'll tell ya. Repeatedly. Anyway, they ship these used bourbon barrels to the Virgin Islands where the barrels are reconditioned and filled. The tour takes you as far as the barreling facility where you get to see and smell the product at five different stages of completion, starting with raw molasses and ending with pre-aged, non-spiced white rum. That's what they make at the distillery and that's pretty much where it ends. When enough full barrels of rum are amassed in the off-site barrel storage buildings, they're brought back to the barreling house and emptied into large shipping vessels. This is where things get weird.

Before we go on, you need to be aware that milk in the Virgin Islands sells for $5.00 or more per gallon (as of early 2018) and a case of serving-sized bottles of orange juice goes for $38. On the mainland, milk goes for less than $2 and a case of orange juice might cost you $14. Conversely, a 750 ml bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum sells for around $20 on the mainland.  (You *can* find it for a little less, but that's a fair average price across the board.) In the Virgin Islands, $10. Tops. Usually $9 and some change and occasionally even less on sale at the grocery stores. The only places that sell it for more than $10 are the duty free shops at the airports, proving once again that "duty free" shopping is the biggest ripoff in retail.

It was a little hard to comprehend that rum was cheaper than milk or juice in the Caribbean. Hell, for me, it was hard to comprehend that every grocery store sells hard alcohol. The fact that they do just made it more ironic that the alcohol is much cheaper than the food. That's not even the weird part.

You're probably thinking, "Well, of course rum is cheaper in the Caribbean. They make it there!" Seems logical. Except that ALL hard alcohol is significantly cheaper there: rum, bourbon, Kahlua, vodka, you name it. Clearly where it's made has nothing to do with the pricing. OK, so probably there's just no excise tax on booze, right? That would explain how they sell bourbon, Kahlua, vodka, and every other imaginable kind of booze cheaper in the Virgin Islands than what it costs on the mainland. But, there's more:

I told you they pump the finished rum out of barrels and into shipping containers. Guess what happens next. Those shipping containers, at least the ones from Captain Morgan's facility, are shipped to - wait for it - Springfield, Illinois where it is "spiced" and bottled. That's right. The main ingredient may be made on St. Croix but the Caribbean booze named for an English privateer who was Lt. Governor of Jamaica is really made in Illinois - a decidedly un-tropical, virtually land-locked state. And, there's still more to the story.

After they add the secret spices to Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and put it into bottles in Illinois, all that rum you can buy in the USVI for less than $10 a bottle is shipped to the USVI from Illinois! In the end, rum should probably cost at least twice as much in the USVI as it does on the US mainland. But, thankfully, it doesn't. Why? Nobody knows, mate.