Rum cake associated with Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago. In Puerto Rico, rum cake is called "Bizcocho de Ron", and is a sponge cake, so as to absorb the rum. If fruit is added to it, it is fresh or dried. Raisins and sultanas may be soaked in rum for one day or one night. Bizcochos de Ron are given as gifts during the holiday season, but they are not considered an insulting gift, the way fruitcakes in the U.S. sometimes are. In the United States, rum cakes have been popular since at least the 1970s. While many island travelers go out
Rum the first rum distillery in the British colonies of North America was set up in 1664 on Staten Island. Boston, Massachusetts had a distillery three years later. The manufacture of rum became early Colonial New England's largest and most prosperous industry. New England became a distilling center due to the technical, metalworking and cooperage skills and abundant lumber; the rum produced there was lighter, more like whiskey. Rhode Island rum even joined gold as an accepted currency in Europe for a period of time. Estimates of rum consumption in the American colonies before the American Revolutionary War had every man,