Rum is an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, which was usually sold to local merchants, paymasters and - of course - pirates. Sugarcane (lat. saccharum officinarum) was grown in the Caribbean and South America since the beginning of the 16th century. Usually slaves were occupied in big plantations to crop the cane.

Sugarcane juice was squeezed from the stalks using sugar mills. The juice was heated and crystallized. Rum actually was made from the byproducts of sugar production - the thick syrup (molasses) that remained after the boiling process. This syrup plus some of the juice was fermented and distilled to produce a clear liquid which is aged from 5 to 7 years in oaken casks. The golden color of some rums results from the absorption of substances from the oak. The darker, heavier Jamaican rums - made for the most part in Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana - are produced from a combination of molasses and skimmings from the sugar boiling vats; the darkest, Guyana's Demarara, is produced by very rapid fermentation and is not particularly heavy bodied. Lighter, drier rums from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are more rapidly fermented with cultured yeasts and are aged from 1 to 4 years.

In order to modify and enhance the rum's flavor and aroma, other substances were sometimes added during the fermentation process. Also caramel was sometimes added after distilling, which gave the rum a dark brownish color.
It is safe to assume that the term "Rum" was derived from the Devonshire word "Rumbullion", meaning "a great tumult". The English were the first to adopt the drink. Beginning in the 17th century, distilleries operating in New York and New England produced rum from West Indian molasses. Traders used rum profits to buy slaves in Africa; the slaves were sold in the West Indies for cargoes of molasses that became New England rum. The attempt by the British to levy heavy duties on molasses imported from the French and Spanish West Indies was an important factor in pre-revolutionary colonial unrest in America.

Grog is a mixture of rum, sugar lemon juice and water, and it was issued to the crew of the Royal Navy. The lemon juice kept the men healthy and lowered the risk of scurvy, sugar should take the bite off the lemon juice, and the rum improved the taste and kept up the spirit of the crew, while the water weakened the alcoholic effect of the drink.

• Rum is considered to be the world's oldest distilled spirit.
• For 300 years, the British Navy administered a daily "tot" (2 ounces) of rum to each sailor, as a health ration.
• English parsons were known to pour a glass of rum for visitors who offered satisfying financial tithes.
• The Rum Hospital of Australia owes its very existence to the revenues produced from rum exports.
• "Rum and Bible" ships carried alcohol and missionaries to the New World as part of Triangular Trade.
• Admiral Nelson's body was preserved prior to burial in a cask of his favorite rum when he died aboard ship during the famous Battle of Trafalgar.
• The colonists in America consumed 12 million gallons of rum per year - almost 4 gallons per capita.
• The French recipe for Planter's Punch was based upon an old slave jingle: "one of sour (lime), two of sweet (sugar), three of strong (rhum), and four of weak (ice)".
• The first Rum Sour drink was formulated in Barbados and served from a conch shell.
• Ethan Allen stopped for some rum at the Catamount Tavern before capturing Ft. Ticonderoga. 
• Sugar cane or one of its byproducts is the basic raw ingredient used in producing rum. More than 80% of the rum consumed in the U.S. comes from Puerto Rico.

Light-bodied, or white, rum can acquire color through extended barrel aging (four to six years for anejos) and should not be confused with the full-bodied rums (such as those from Jamaica) made by a slightly different process.