Rum Key Outpost sits low in the Bahamas chain, its sheds and stills turning out casks that every sloop between Nassau and the southern trades stops to claim.
First cleared in the 1690s by a small crew of English distillers who had slipped out of Nassau to avoid the new excise men, the island's cane fields and copper stills were raised on the sheltered eastern cove. Spanish guarda-costa burned the sheds twice between 1702 and 1710, yet each time the same families returned and rebuilt with heavier stone. By 1718 the place had passed into the hands of a loose company of ex-privateers who kept the rum flowing in exchange for safe anchorage and fresh water for any vessel running between Nassau and the southern passages.
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