02

It was not until the middle of the 18th century that sugar beet was discovered to contain sugar. Up till then, sugar had been an imported luxury, available only to the well-off. Boiled, reduced fruit juice or honey were used for sweetening.

In the warm, tropical regions of the world, sugar cane was known long before the birth of Christ and reached Western Europe in the wake of the crusades.

Christopher Columbus took sugar cane seedlings on his second voyage to America. He discovered Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico – and “Santa Cruz”, later St. Croix – in 1493. The conditions for cultivating sugar cane in that climate were ideal. Sugar cane cultivation soon came to dominate the economy of the three Danish West Indian Islands, and extensive sugar cane plantations were established, in particular on St. Croix.

Once cut, sugar cane goes bad very quickly. It therefore has to be pressed immediately after the harvest.

The boiling results in two products which are directly related to each other. One product is the crystalline, dark and sticky raw cane sugar. It was treated further in Flensburg and Copenhagen into rock sugar and ultrafine sugar. The second product is the juice, which, after the addition of yeast, fermentation and distillation, becomes pure rum. This was already known to the inhabitants of the Caribbean and also found its way to Europe. Over the centuries, the Flensburg rum manufacturers continued to refine the product.