From Battlefields to Jukeboxes, The Surprising History Behind the Rum & Coke Isn't What You Think
In 1949 an FBI informant named John J. Huber testified during the McCarthy hearings about the alleged political entanglements of athlete, actor, and activist Paul Robson. Huber, who was later described as “a seedy shrimp of a man who informed for a fee,” claimed to have seen Robeson at Communist Party meetings, where Huber made drinks for him. Robeson “used to like the way I mixed rum & Coke for him,” Huber testified, “and he would often come over to me… and thank me for the drinks I mixed for him.”
The St. Louis Post Dispatch called bullshit. “Mr Huber’s implication is that skill is involved in mixing rum and Coca-Cola together” the paper noted. “All that has to be done is pour them out and mix them together… Why, it takes more skill than that to mix cement.”
The paper wasn’t wrong. Nor was it the first time the rum & Coke found itself enmeshed in a cultural and political clash. In fact, the drink emerged as a cocktail icon from a crucible of international conflict.
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Rum had been a North American spirit staple since the 17th century, when Caribbean sugar planters discovered they could make bank by distilling byproducts of sugar into a fiery spirit. And Coca-Cola, founded in 1886, was hitting its stride in the 1930s and looking to expand overseas.
The two were fated to meet. All it took was a war or two to make it happen.
Rum & Coke likely first paired up around the time of the 1898 Spanish American War, when Coca-Cola followed American troops into Cuba. But it was during World War II that the rum & Coke became internationally famous.
After Pearl Harbor was attacked and America went all in on the war effort, the U.S. government decreed that most sugar be diverted to the war effort, in part to make ethanol for munitions. Coca-Cola had wisely stockpiled sugar in advance of the outbreak of war, but it didn’t help: the company was ordered to sell one million hundred-pound bags of its stash to the government.
Faced with a sharp decline in production, Coke seized on a loophole: the sugar provided to the military was exempt from the buyback decree. So Coke pivoted to focus on supplying military bases, particularly in the South where it was already well established.
When the troops went overseas, Coke followed. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, was ultimately in charge of ensuring his soldiers were taken care of. "I had them make a survey to see just what the men wanted,” he wrote, “and more of them voted for Coca-Cola than beer."
Coke sent a small legion of “technical observers” abroad, charged with setting up bottling plants as soon as the allies had secured a region. In Algeria and Morocco, they operated with Italian prisoners of war, and by early 1944 a plant was operating in Naples. By the time the war ended, the Coca-Cola Company had 63 overseas bottling plants in operation, from Egypt to Iceland to New Guinea.
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One of the military bases was on the island of Trinidad. This was one of several island installations tasked with intercepting German submarines, which effectively extended American borders hundreds of miles offshore. Trinidad, with a population of 400,000, soon found itself host to 130,000 new arrivals in the way of American troops.
Coca-Cola soon followed, naturally—Coke had vowed that servicemen abroad would always be able to buy a Coke for a nickel, the same price it cost during World War I. Servicemen in Trinidad found that Coke formed an easy dalliance with local rum, with the bitter-sweet soda perfectly complementing the full, pungent spirit.
A locally famed calypso singer named Lord Invader (actual name: Rupert Westmore Grant) took notice. He had watched American GIs flirting with island girls near a naval base and adapted a classic calypso number with lyrics depicting what he saw. “Some of the Yankees came to Trinidad, They have the young girls going mad… They buy rum and Coca-Cola, go down to Point Koomhana…”
A visiting USO performer on the island named Morey Amsterdam (later to be remembered for his role on The Dick Van Show) heard the song, tweaked it a bit, and brought it home and published it. "Rum & Coca-Cola" was picked up by the super-popular Andrews Sisters, who recorded it to fill studio time and didn’t expect much to come of it. They were wrong. The song went on to sell seven million copies, and lingered on the Billboard Top Thirty list for 20 weeks, half of it in the number one slot.
Courtesy Corbis Via Getty Images
Rum & Coke showed up at the party, and essentially never left. It was tasty, it was consistent, it could be ordered in virtually any bar or made at home. It had pleasing elements of bitter and sweet, and an optional squeeze of lime brought in sour. ”With a slice of lime, it is the ultimate do-it-yourself Caribbean drink,” wrote Frank Prial in his New York Times wine column in 1986.
The drink has persisted, despite not being terrifically sophisticated in a cocktail world that values complexity. (In And a Bottle of Rum, my 2006 history of rum, I harsh on it as “a drink of inspired blandness.”)
Last year, Bacardi listed it as the world’s eighth most popular cocktail in bars. (Down from second most popular in the early 2010s, but still holding its own.) Seventeen percent of survey respondents flagged it as a favorite, below the mojito and daiquiri among rum drinks, and more ignobly, below whiskey and Coke (19 percent).
One might infer from this that it’s on the way out. But I wouldn’t bet against it. History says that the rum & Coke does well in times of conflict, which bodes well for the near future. In any event, it’s hard to imagine the drink going away.
Pour a little from one bottle into a glass, then another. Why, it would take more skill to mix cement.
Rum & Coke
Makes 1 cocktail
Ingredients
- 2 ounces rum
- 3 ounce Coca-Cola
- 1 lime wedge, for garnish
Directions
- Add the rum and cola to a highball glass filled with ice. Stir, and garnish with a lime wedge.
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