Rum

Besides being tasty, rum keeps a pirate ship running smoothly. Getting into a sword fight without any rum aboard will cause two lines of rum jugs at the sword fighting screen, making the fight harder for the crew. Also, in rumble, no rum will cause the precision of aiming to be reduced. If your ship runs out of rum, you'll be in for a rough ride until you can get back to port and buy more.

The amount of rum consumed is dependent on the rank of the pirate, and the amount of time spent at sea. An officer will consume more rum than a cabin person, so you will need to store more rum for an officer heavy pillage.

Types of rum
There are three grades of rum: Fine rum, Grog, and Swill. Fine rum is the highest quality rum and is rated at 100 proof. Grog is a mid quality rum rated at 60 proof. Swill is the lowest quality rum and is 40 proof. The higher proof rums are consumed slower than lower quality rums. If you have multiple qualities of rum on board, the lower quality rums are consumed first: swill first, then grog, then fine rum.

Other than taking up slightly more storage space, fifteen barrels of swill are the equivalent of either ten barrels of grog or six barrels of rum. In most cases, the extra storage space needed to carry swill or grog will be negligible (even a sloop can hold 13,500 barrels). In trade runs involving bulky commodities (such as Wood or Hemp), the type of rum chosen may make a slight difference in how much of the commodity will fit.

To find out which is the cheapest to buy per unit, multiply the swill price by 15, the grog by 10, and the fine rum by 6. Or another way to consider it is that for every five PoE that fine rum costs, swill should cost 2 PoE and grog should cost 3 PoE. For example, if rum is selling for 50 PoE, then the equivalent price for swill is 20 PoE and grog is 30 PoE. If rum is selling for 60 PoE, then the equivalent prices for swill and grog are 24 and 36, respectively.

Whatever price ends up being lowest is the one ye should buy. Or, if your math skills are still stuck in the pirate ages, you can use this handy Rum Calculator.

For restocking a ship remember 5 Swill = 2 fine rums and 5 Grog = 3 fine rum so 5 swill and 5 grog will last as long as 5 fine rum.

Rum can be bought dockside from various distillery shoppes or stalls. It can also be ordered in advance in person from those same shoppes and stalls and delivered to the ship while docked in port. Sometimes ordering ahead of time will save you PoE, while at other times dockside prices are cheaper. Orders will always take time to fill, so if you need rum right away, you will have to buy dockside. Prices for rum fluctuate over time and prices generally differ from island to island, so remember to check around for the best price.

Running out of rum will result in rum sickness, which causes a gradual drop in the efficiency of the carpentry, patching, bilging, sailing and rigging puzzles. In addition, it affects the melee battles as follows: the outer two columns of the swordfight puzzle are filled with indestructible rum jugs during the swordfight, and during a rumble match, causes the targeting hands to shake, making it a little harder to aim.

Rum is made at distillery shoppes and stalls on inhabited islands. If you venture far from civilization, make sure you stock enough rum for the return to an inhabited island.

Rum Recipes
Each order produces 10 units.

Swill

 * Iron: 1 unit
 * Sugar cane: 7 units
 * Wood: 4 units
 * 2 hours basic distilling labor

Grog

 * Iron: 1 unit
 * Sugar cane: 10 units
 * Wood: 5 units
 * 2 hours basic distilling labor
 * 2 hours skilled distilling labor

Fine rum

 * Iron: 1 unit
 * Sugar cane: 15 units
 * Wood: 8 units
 * 2 hours basic distilling labor
 * 2 hours skilled distilling labor
 * 2 hours expert distilling labor

Secondary Use
Swill and grog can also be used as refined commodities. Swill is needed for the production of:

Grog is needed for the production of: