Exactly as printed, 1867
Jamaica Rum Neutral spirits, 4 galls.; Jamaica rum, 1 gall.; sulphuric acid, 1/2 oz.; acetic ether, 4 oz. burnt sugar coloring, 8 oz.
Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts, 1867. Public domain; transcription unaltered.
☠️ Poison Pantry
1867
Jamaica Rum (factitious)
Four gallons of neutral spirit, one of real rum, and half an ounce of sulphuric acid.
So what happens if I make it?
Oil of vitriol by the half-ounce, into a liquid intended for sale and drinking. It is corrosive, and there is no purpose it serves here that a food-grade acid would not serve better.
The acetic ether is doing the flavour work — it reads as fruity and rummy — and the burnt sugar supplies the colour. The one gallon of genuine rum is there so the label is not entirely a lie.
Notes from the 21st century
- “Factitious” is the book's own word. It means manufactured, artificial, made in imitation. The chapter announces exactly what it is doing.
- The ether preparation is worse than the rum. Making rum ether meant twelve pounds of manganese dioxide and twelve of concentrated sulphuric acid with alcohol — an uncontrolled oxidation at scale.
- This was the trade, not a fringe. Mackenzie's printed ten thousand receipts for the working tradesman. These formulas were in general use.
Also in this book
- Bonbons cast in leaden moulds — Boiling sugar syrup, poured into moulds made of lead, and handed to children.
- Choking remedy — If it will go neither up nor down, put two grains of tartar emetic in the choking person's mouth.
- Common Ratafia — Ten pounds of bitter almonds infused in ten gallons of spirit, perfumed with ambergris.
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Bonbons cast in leaden moulds
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Mackenzie's Ten Thousand Receipts · 1867