Note 63 — PETER KALM’s TRAVELS. (continued 3)

Rum, a brandy prepared from the sugar-canes, and in great use with all the English North American colonies, is reckoned much wholesomer than brandy, made from wine or corn63. In confirmation of this opinion, they say, that if you put a piece of fresh meat into rum, and another into brandy, and leave them there for some months; that in the rum will keep as it was, but that in the brandy will be quite eaten, and full of holes. But this experiment does not seem a very accurate one to me. Major Roderfort told me, that being upon the Canada expedition, he had observed, that such of his men as drank brandy for some time died of it; but those who drank rum were not hurt, though they got drunk with it every day, and oftener than the others.