There are a lot of questions as to where exactly rum was “invented” originally. Rum has been around since ancient times. Nothing if not old, it is practically forced to walk with a (sugar) cane. Though it wasn’t first distilled in plantations until the 17th century, rum is believed to have existed thousands of years prior in the form of brum, a drink made by the Malay people. In the 14th century, Marco Polo, an explorer, wrote about a wine made of sugar, giving further credence to the belief that rum was around before the 1600s.