The proof test may actually be part of a larger maritime tradition of mixing gunpowder and liquor. Robert Lee, a biographer of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, reported that the notorious pirate once got the attention of his compatriots in a tavern by “mixing gunpowder in his rum, setting it on fire and guzzling the explosive mixture.” How this was accomplished by someone as famously bearded as Teach was not adequately explained, and I didn’t feel an immediate need to reenact this feat.

Then I heard about a talented bartender named Ben Simpson at Motel Bar in Wellington, New Zealand. Simpson is the creator of Man O’War Gunpowder Rum, which is made of blended rums infused with black gunpowder and other ingredients. Simpson had also read about Blackbeard’s explosive concoction, which got him to thinking: sailors used to add all sorts of things to their rum to make it more palatable … charcoal was sometimes used in casks aboard ships to keep the contents tasting fresh … gunpowder contains a lot of charcoal … and, well, why not? “A lot of it is my own hypothesis,” Simpson admits. In addition to gunpowder, Man O’War is infused with tobacco and chili peppers. “Mostly I’m making assumptions about sailors and how they drank crazy things.”

Simpson is not yet selling his rum by the bottle—he serves it at his bar and trades it for other exotic liquors—but I had a chance to try it recently when a sample arrived in the mail. It came in Simpson’s standard packaging: a used whiskey bottle tightly wrapped in a brown paper bag, the cap sealed with duct tape. Man O’War smelled a bit like you’d imagine sailors’ quarters smelled 300 years ago—a little musty, a touch sulfurous. But the rum had an outsize taste that was beguiling and somehow antiquarian. A brief chocolaty sweetness was quickly offset by leathery notes, with a powdery dryness that seemed to trigger an implosion, rather than an explosion, in the mouth.

I theorized that it would do well in a rum Manhattan, and I made one with equal parts Demerara rum from Guyana and Man O’War. The drink was sublime. As I sipped, I looked over the bottle’s label and noted that it was “approx. 49 percent alcohol,” which seemed to invite further testing. I gathered up the rum, some gunpowder, and a box of matches, then headed out to the yard.

I mean, what could go wrong?