In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the colonies that would later become Canada were awash in a sea of rum. Millions of litres of that sugar-based liquor were imported every year to supply its comparatively small population of colonists and Indigenous people, while thousands of additional litres flowed from colonial distilleries. Why rum, and why so much of it? The simple answer is that it was cheap and plentiful in eighteenth-century North America. Thought to be good for the health, at least when imbibed in moderation, readily available liquor was generally seen as a good...