The story goes that the pirate, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, once mixed gunpowder in his rum, set the rum on fire and then drank the explosive mixture, sort of an early 18th century flaming jello shot, but with more incendiary and less jello.    It seems that a New Zealand bartender, Ben Simpson at Motel Bar in Wellington, was inspired by Blackbeard to develop his  Man O’War Gunpowder Rum, a tobacco, chilli, and gunpowder infused rum which may either put hair on your chest or just possibly set it on fire.

The rum mixture is served in Mr. Simpson’s bar and is not generally available by the bottle for export.  Since the rum has been written about in the November Atlantic Magazine, Gunpowder on the Rocks,  and AOL News among other places, demand for the concoction has sprung up notably on  the rum’s Facebook page. (Of course, it has a Facebook page.)  In response to this demand, a perfectly reasonable, if disappointing, note has been posted on the page, as follows:

Sadly liquids sent through the post (particularly flammable liquids laced with explosives) are usually picked up by US Customs before they get to their destination. Hand-delivery is about the only way to get individual bottles into the States at the moment.

For those interested, Wayne Curtis, of the Atlantic Monthly, tasted the rum and had the following appraisal:

Man O’War smelled a bit like you’d imagine sailors’ quarters smelled 300 years ago—a little musty, a touch sulfurous. But the rum had an outsize taste that was beguiling and somehow antiquarian. A brief chocolaty sweetness was quickly offset by leathery notes, with a powdery dryness that seemed to trigger an implosion, rather than an explosion, in the mouth.

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for passing along the news of this most interesting libation.