The Mount Gay Rum visitors centre in Barbados claims to be the world's oldest active rum company, with earliest confirmed deed from 1703. Rum has also served as a popular medium of economic exchange, used to help fund enterprises such as slavery (see Triangular trade), organized crime, and military insurgencies (e.g., the American Revolution and Australia's Rum Rebellion). The beverage has famous associations with the Royal Navy (where it was mixed with water or beer to make grog) and piracy (where it was consumed as bumbo).
Rum plays a part in the culture of most islands of the West Indies as well as the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland, in Canada. Premium rums are made to be consumed either straight or iced. Light rums are commonly used in cocktails, whereas 'golden' and 'dark' rums were typically consumed straight or neat, iced (' on the rocks'), or used for cooking, but are now commonly consumed with mixers. Most rums are produced in Caribbean (most famously Jamaica and Cuba) and North and South American countries, but also in other sugar-producing regions, such as the Philippines and Taiwan. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. Government House rum, manufactured by the Virgin Islands Company distillery in St.
