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When people think rum, people usually think about the Caribbean—palm trees, coconut shells and sugar cane fields as far as the eye can see. While its spiritual center most certainly resides in the islands, rum, which technically can be produced anywhere in the world, has an important connection to North America.

Before there was bourbon and rye, there was rum. “North America was producing a ton of rum in the 1700s,” says Fred Minnick, the author of “Rum Curious” (Voyageur Press, $25).

Much of the production was concentrated in New England and the Gulf states. Legend holds that the first North American rum distillery was on Staten Island in 1664, but Minnick says that although there was indeed a distillery on the New York borough, there’s little supporting evidence that it produced rum.

Ships coming from the Caribbean to the Northeast would use molasses as both ballast and trade, according to Maggie Smith, the head distiller for Massachusetts’ Privateer Rum. After the War of 1812, a combination of steep import taxes, the gradual abolishment of the slave trade triangle, and a meteoric rise in the popularity of whiskey in America would soon crowd out the cane-based spirit. It would again be produced, albeit poorly, during Prohibition—hence the term “rum runner.”

The explosion of craft distilling over the past decade includes North American rums, which are in the midst of a renaissance, with labels appearing all over the country, from California to Minnesota to Massachusetts.