Newburyport Rum: Help Rebecca!

Last year I wrote a post called Rum and me.  For me it was a stroll down Memory Lane.  Surprisingly, people search often enough for 'Caldwell's rum' or 'Newburyport rum.'

Today a lady in Maine sent me this comment:

Hello, I am wondering if anyone might be able to answer the following question for me. During a recent landscaping overhaul of our front yard we unearthed a brown bottle with the name Caldwell's Rum imprinted in the glass. The bottle is in perfect condition and we were wondering if anyone knew how old the bottle might be? It was obviously made prior to the use of paper bottle labels. Any help on dating this bottle would be appreciated. Thanks.

This is the sort of question that I couldn't begin to answer.  If you have any concrete suggestions for Rebecca, I'm sure she would be very grateful.  And I'd be very interested too.

By the way, in the original post I wrote, "As I was growing up there was always a big sign on a ramshackle distillery near the water, "Caldwell's Rum Since 1790."  I'm sure it's gone now.

It sure is.  The old factory and workshop zone by the Merrimac has been condoized for at least 10 or 15 years.  I'm amazed when I go by that area now.  In my mind's eye, though, the old stuff is still there.

Now I begin to understand why really old people retreat into the realm of memory.  When I take up full-time residence there, it will probably be 1950. 

I've had worse years. 

Comments

[John]

Now they even have a street in that area named Sally Snyder Way!

[Strappo]

Seriously? That's amazing.

(Readers: Sally Snyder was our cousin, who served as a nurse in Vietnam and died of cancer in the early 90s. She believed that it was due to her exposure to Agent Orange.)

[John]

Yes. It is almost an extension of Broad Street on the north side of Merrimac St. In to where all of those lovely new condos are located!!

[Joan Hawkins]

Until well into the 80's Perhaps even the early 90's - time flies) it was still possible to find bottles of Caldwell's rum in small liquor stores in the New England area. I believe the company had been bought by Heublein and they discontinued that part of the line. Other than being a remnant of the Triangle trade it was remarkable for its flavor--much better than Meyer's or any of the others I've tasted in an unsuccessful search for a replacement. I hope I live long enough for Heublein to rectify their error!

[TH]

I had no idea it was available for so long. I can imagine it was excellent stuff. How would it compare to, say, Gosling's? (Which is my favorite. Meyers' isn't very good.)

[kkandss@maine.rr.com]

Caldwells Rum was a new England standard in the 1950's and '60's. My Dan met the general manager of the company at some point and remarked to me that he was African-American. There still is a liquor company situated in Massachusetts that sells a product by the name of Caldwell's Rum, but it is definitely not the same product. It is very dark -- fom caramel coloring, no doubt. The original Caldwells was gold, but not dark.

[Fred Gordon]

Caldwell Rum was bought by Felton of Boston-- I can get the exact date. Caldwell was produced at the Felton Distillery, at 516 E. Second St., South Boston. The building there still has Caldwell Rum signage decipherable on the brick face. That operation was bought by Old Mr. Boston in 1960. We bought it from them in 1982 when the distilling operation was shut down, and developed it as as a mixed use building, mainly filled with artists. We are about to build a Passivhaus on the site, a 62- unit residential design that will use 10% of the energy of an ordinary new building, but will leave the old distilling building as is, to the delight of the artists and the Boston Historical Commission. By the way, I think that it was the chemist who was Afro-American, the first black PhD to graduate in chemistry from MIT. If people have any information, labels, bottles, or historical records about Caldwell or Felton, I would be eager to hear about it.