16th - 18th centuryThe main colonial powers did not take long to start growing sugarcane in the new world colonies to produce sugar, a luxury product at the time. By the end of the 17th century, British, French and Spanish were producing sugar and a spirit obtained by controlled fermentation and distillation of a sugarcane byproduct called molasses. They named it rum (English), rhum (French) and ron (Spanish). It was also likely discovered around the same time that a similar distillation process could be applied to the sugarcane juice to make a rum that is today known as Agricole rum.
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1870In 1870, sugarcane accounted for 57% of Martinique arable lands. Sugar prices plunged heavily due to worldwide over production and the growing availability in Europe of beet sugar. To survive a number of distilleries started make rum directly from fresh sugarcane juice instead of molasses. The rhum agricole was born or rather reborn. This peculiar way of making rum helped the French producers to avoid confrontation with other islands where sugar production ratios were much higher.
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