A real rum do this Christmas

Christmas just isn’t complete without some rum sauce on the pud, but there’s only one place to go, if you want to make your festivities a real rum do this year. Award-winning attraction, The Rum Story, in historic Whitehaven in the Western Lake District, is the spiritual home of everything to do with rum and, even today, the source of the finest dark spirit of them all – Jefferson’s Rum.

As a theme, rum is hard to match, its rich story being an integral part of British history and that of the British navy and encompassing the injustices of slavery, the debauchery of London’s Punch Houses, the perils of being press ganged into service, the secrets of the smugglers and the rum trade’s consequences, in terms of Capone and Eliot Ness’s Untouchables.

This gripping story is best told in Whitehaven - the geographical lynch-pin of Britain’s rum and sugar trade, where over 250, mostly Georgian townhouses breathe the history of a town that was once the second largest port after London.

The rum and sugar trade made Whitehaven bustle and bulge with sailors, slaves and smugglers and this is the historical canvas that the Rum Story brings to life. All is housed within the building from which the Jeffersons ran their profitable business, manned their fleet of merchant vessels and controlled activities on Antigua’s plantations.

Three-floors of historical drama make a visit to The Rum Story an unforgettable and moving experience, with the introductions taking place in the offices where little has changed since the Jefferson’s clerks scribbled in their ledgers, under the watchful eye of the supervisor.

The story moves on to a rainforest in Antigua, where the noises of animals and insects in the trees capture the excitement and terror that English settlers would have experienced on arrival there.

A sugar workshop conveys the terrible conditions that slaves working the plantations would have faced, as they boiled the sugar cane , sitting besides huge vats and working in intense heat.

The deserted vault is pretty much the same as it was at the height of the rum trade, when barrels, boxes and sacks unloaded in the huge harbour would have been stored here. All of the machinery here is original, including the hand-corking machine and the lead sealer for the bottle tops.

A rum making exhibition demonstrates how rum is still made in Grenada and how the sugar cane was made into both sugar and the molasses that formed the basis of rum.

The African village area conveys the terror of African families who fell prey to the slave traders’ raiding parties, prior to being branded and sold – lock, stock and barrel, as slaves.

The Slave Ship is an emotional look at how 80,000 slaves a year made a journey to the New World. The indenture in the exhibition shows the ages of over 500 slaves, aged from one to 50.

Moving on to the Punch House, visitors get a glimpse of a world portrayed by the artist Hogarth, where the fruits of the slave and rum trade were enjoyed by England’s richest citizens.

The Jefferson Exhibition shows the financial impact the rum trade had on the family, as well as housing the bottom portion of a barrel that reached up into the floor above and which would have held £250,000 worth of rum.

The Navy zone looks at the rum trade from the perspective of a sailor in the navy, examining diet, disease, press ganging and even how Lord Nelson was pickled in rum to preserve his body on the return from the Battle of Trafalgar!

The art of the cooper is then examined in the Cooperage area, before visitors are introduced to the illegal tactics of the smugglers who operated up and down the Cumbrian coast, smuggling goods in from ‘The Warehouse of Frauds’ – the Isle of Man.

Moving across the Atlantic, the focus shifts to Prohibition in cities like Chicago, where a swing in attitudes to alcohol led to illegal bootlegging, organised crime and the emergence of villains like Al Capone and heroes like Eliot Ness.

The journey concludes in the Fun Rum Room, where TV chef, Rustie Lee, offers suggestions of how to use rum in recipes and cocktails, and where families can play games and have fun on a rum theme, before moving on to shop, or enjoy a snack in the Courtyard Café.

The Rum Story is open from 10am to 4.30pm over Christmas, closing only on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. Admission costs £5.45 for an adult, £4.45 for concessions and £3.45 for children. Family tickets for two adults and two children cost £16.45. More details are available at Rumstory.co.uk.

Whitehaven’s history can also be further explored at The Beacon, a totally refurbished, interactive, five-floored, lighthouse-shaped attraction on the historic harbour side. Here, both maritime and mining history is conveyed dynamically, through hundreds of exhibits and interactive displays. Children can even have the chance to present the weather!

Admission costs £5 for an adult and under 16s enter for free, with a full fee paying adult. The Beacon is closed between December 24-26, but open Tuesdays to Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays at other times. More details are available at thebeacon-whitehaven.co.uk.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to visit Whitehaven over the Christmas holidays and taste the Western Lake District’s wonderful cuisine, which includes dishes like Cumberland Rum Nicky - full of rum, ginger and other spices – thanks to the area’s rich history. Ideas of where to stay can be found at western-lakedistrict.co.uk.