Book review: The Rum 1000

I was very excited when I received my copy of Ray Foley's "The Rum 1000," especially since it had been a while since I had last reviewed a rum book.

The book is organized into five chapters:

Chapter one: 75 rum facts

Chapter two: 700 rum cocktails

Chapter three: 50 food recipes using rum

Chapter four: 75 rum producers and

Chapter five: 100 rum websites

Adding all the above you get the "1000" referred to in the book's title. While I was pleased with the cocktail and food recipes, all other chapters left me a bit disappointed, especially chapter one, as many of the facts are wrong and others are misleading. A few examples:

• "Most, but not all, rums come from Puerto Rico and the West Indies"
• "Premium rums are made from small batches of aged and gently distilled rum"
• "Other rums are aged in stainless steel tanks"
• "Ron Añejo means a rum that has been significantly aged"
  

I believe that Mr. Foley could have avoided some of the confusion by elaborating on each fact, rather than simply stating it in a brief sentence, especially the ones dealing with controversial topics, such as aging (for the record, storage in stainless steel containers is NOT aging).

Another suggestion for the second edition -and I do hope there will be one, as the world needs more books about this wonderful spirit- is to maintain the lists of rum distillers and rum websites on-line, and provide a link to these lists on the book, this way the content can be dynamically updated to allow it to reflect the changing times.

I recommend this book to those looking to enhance their libraries with a collection of food and drink recipes. Serious rum enthusiasts looking for more -and more accurate- rum facts, however, will be disappointed.

Luis Ayala is an author and rum consultant with Rum Runner Press, Inc. To learn more about rum, please visit http://www.rumshop.net/ or http://www.rumuniversity.com/.