The Rum University

Photo credit: King Oliver : A Dutch pamphlet of the late 1650s portrays Cromwell as a monarch.

It is 4:00 a.m. in a clubroom said to be St. John’s Coffee-house, Shire Lane, London. The candles are burning out on a night consigned to drinking, and the revelers betray every state of drunkenness from rowdiness to stupefaction. In spite of William Hogarth’s admonition in his caption — “Think not to find one meant resemblance there, we lash the Vices but the Persons spare” — people took delight in associating individuals in the print with various reprobates in London society.

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The Rum University

Beer Street and Gin Lane are two prints issued in 1751 by English artist William Hogarth in support of what would become the Gin Act . Designed to be viewed alongside each other, they depict the evils of the consumption of gin as a contrast to the merits of drinking beer.

The Rum University & Moonshine University will be offering a 5-Day Rum Training Course in Louisville, KY February 2nd-6th, 2015. The instructor will be Luis Ayala, one of the leading experts in the rum industry. For more information or to register for the course, please visit: http://www.moonshineuniversity.com/events/5-day-rum-course/

Printed by Edward Suter, printer to the Infant School Society, 19. Cheapside, London, for the Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Early Education of Negro Children. This aquatint plate print was first published in 1823, in William Clark’s Ten views in the Island of Antigua and was later re-used, along with other plates in the same series, by the Ladies’ Societ y to teach chi ldren to read.