"Oh we can make liquor to sweeten our lips Of pumpkins, of parsnips, of walnut-tree chips."
Fiercer liquors were not lacking. Aqua-vitæ, a general name for strong waters, was brought over in large quantities during the seventeenth century, and sold for about three shillings a gallon. Cider was distilled into cider brandy, or apple-jack; and when, by 1670, molasses had come into port in considerable quantity through the West India trade, the forests of New England supplied plentiful and cheap fuel to convert it into "rhum, a strong water drawn from the sugar cane." In a manuscript description of Barbadoes, written in 1651, we read: "The chief fudling they make in this island is Rumbullion alias Kill Divil--a hot hellish and terrible liquor." It was called in some localities Barbadoes liquor, and by the Indians "ahcoobee" or "ockuby," a word of the Norridgewock tongue. John Eliot spelled it "rumb," and Josselyn called it plainly "that cussed liquor, Rhum, rumbullion, or kill-devil." It went by the latter name and rumbooze everywhere, and was soon cheap enough. Increase Mather said, in 1686, "It is an unhappy thing that in later years a Kind of Drink called Rum has been common among us. They that are poor, and wicked too, can for a penny or twopence make themselves drunk." Burke said, at a later date, "The quantity of spirits which they distil in Boston from the molasses they import is as surprising as the cheapness at which they sell it, which is under two shillings a gallon; but they are more famous for the quantity and cheapness than for the excellency of their rum." In 1719, and fifty years later, New England rum was worth but three shillings a gallon, while West India rum was worth but twopence more. New England distilleries quickly found a more lucrative way of disposing of their "kill-devil" than by selling it at such cheap rates. Ships laden with barrels of rum were sent to the African coast, and from thence they returned with a most valuable lading--negro slaves. Along the coast of Africa New England rum quite drove out French brandy.
The Irish and Scotch settlers knew how to make whiskey from rye and wheat, and they soon learned to manufacture it from barley and potatoes, and even from the despised Indian corn.