By Kytka<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every Czech knows the smell of Tuzem\u00e1k \u2014 that caramel-dark \u201crum\u201d that isn\u2019t rum at all. It\u2019s poured into Christmas pastries, splashed into tea on cold nights, and shared around the fire at potlachs and cottages across the country. And for all Czechs, it is the secret fragrance in Christmas cookies! But few know its remarkable story \u2014 how it began not in the Caribbean, but in a small South Bohemian town called Jind\u0159ich\u016fv Hradec.
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From Wine Presses to Beet Spirits<\/strong> The Taste of Adaptation<\/strong> Stories like this are why I love documenting Czech traditions \u2014 small inventions born from hard times, carried forward by memory and taste. Your support here on Patreon keeps this work alive: the research, the writing, the long nights of translating history into stories that make us smile. By Kytka Every Czech knows the smell of Tuzem\u00e1k \u2014 that caramel-dark \u201crum\u201d that isn\u2019t rum at all. It\u2019s poured into Christmas pastries, splashed into tea on cold nights, and shared around the fire at potlachs and cottages across the country. And for all Czechs, it is the secret fragrance in Christmas cookies! But few …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechslavnosti.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In 1898, a man named Moritz Schulz founded a little factory in Jind\u0159ich\u016fv Hradec to make fruit and dessert wines. He was an innovator \u2014 one of the first in Austria-Hungary to bottle wines made entirely from local fruits. His factory was equipped with its own orchards, presses, fermentation tanks, and bottling lines. Schulz didn\u2019t just make drinks \u2014 he created entire flavors from scratch, experimenting like an alchemist of taste.
His success grew, and by the early 1900s, he owned a brewery in nearby Karda\u0161ova \u0158e\u010dice. For half a century, the Schulz family name stood for fine fruit wines and liqueurs \u2014 until history intervened.
World War II scattered the family. Some fled to England; others stayed behind. In 1948, their factory was nationalized by the new communist regime and folded into the massive state enterprise Jiho\u010desk\u00e1 Fruta \u2014 a name that would appear on jam jars, baby food, and eventually\u2026 a new kind of spirit.
Enter Tuzemsk\u00fd Rum \u2014 Rum of the Homeland
Back in the 19th century, long before global trade and tropical imports, the Czech lands (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) didn\u2019t have access to sugarcane \u2014 the essential ingredient for real rum. But they did have sugar beets.
So local distillers did what Czechs have always done best \u2014 they improvised.
They began fermenting alcohol from sugar beets, potatoes, and grain, then flavored it with secret blends of caramel, vanilla, and spice to mimic Caribbean rum.
This homegrown imitation became known as Tuzemsk\u00fd rum \u2014 literally \u201cRum of the Homeland.\u201d It was part of a broader Central European tradition called Inl\u00e4nder-Rum, or \u201crum of the homeland.\u201d
And thus, the Czech \u201crum\u201d was born \u2014 not from palm trees, but from fields of beets.
It wasn\u2019t rum by definition, but it became the heart of Czech kitchens, camps, and holidays.
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To this day, Fruko-Schulz, the same company founded by Moritz Schulz more than 125 years ago, produces about four million bottles of Tuzem\u00e1k each year. The European Union later ruled that only spirits made from sugarcane could be called rum, so the name changed to Tuzem\u00e1k \u2014 but to Czechs, it\u2019s still \u201crum.\u201d
Its scent carries a thousand memories.
Christmas baking with your grandmother, stirring rumov\u00e9 kuli\u010dky and b\u00e1bovka batter; sitting by a frozen pond with a flask of rumov\u00fd \u010daj to stay warm; or passing a bottle around a campfire at a tramping potlach, guitars humming under the stars.
The history of Czech \u201crum\u201d is more than a quirk \u2014 it\u2019s a story of ingenuity and identity.
It reflects how Czechs adapted to what they had, turning scarcity into creativity, and how tradition persisted through wars, occupations, and bureaucracy.
When the world said you can\u2019t have rum, the Czechs made their own \u2014 from beets.
And somehow, it became better \u2014 because it tasted like home.
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Thank you for being part of this journey and for raising a glass \u2014 or an enamel mug \u2014 to the sweet, stubborn spirit of the Czech people.
Kytka writes about lifestyle, literature, art and history. Find her at www.patreon.com\/kytka\/posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"