Set 'em up!

Sampling at Mt Gay, Barbados
Originally uploaded by 10cocktails.

It's Memorial Day weekend, the time when rum traditionally begins its migration from the back of the liquor cabinet to the front.

So it seemed a perfectly good time to launch a blog about rum. I'm planning this to be, more or less, a continuation of my book by other means. "And a Bottle of Rum" is now off to the printers – it's due in bookstores and available from online booksellers July 25 – but I don't feel like I'm done writing about rum. Anyway, it's hard to stop.

And I still learn things every day about rum, some of which contradicts what I've already written. So I'd like to use this space to right possible wrongs – why is it that drinking always involves apologies and making amends? – as well as add fresh information and soliciting input from readers. It also seems a good spot to share interesting cocktail recipes, and open to debate some of the finer points of rum history. (For instance, if anyone finds documentation of rum being made on any of the islands before it surfaced on Barbados around 1640, I'd be very interested to hear.)

I'll also hope to report on rum findings from my forthcoming travels – like bars with good rum selections or intriguing cocktail variations – and hope to get suggestions from others about rum-related destinations worthy of a detour.

I'm hoping to post at least two or three times a week. I apologize in advance if you find tedious the preaching about the joys of a good rum and a perfectly balanced rum cocktail.