Rum and Britain have a long and tangled past together similar to other plundering European countries such as France, Spain and the Netherlands. Indeed the very origins of the word “rum” has been attributed to each of these nations (and others) at some point.
Like it or not rum was used as a commodity by British Privateers and was used to establish the slave trade in the Caribbean and the US. Empires were built on the trade of goods in the Caribbean and the islands frequently changed ownership between the warring European Empires.