Sugarcane to Glass: Rum and the Making of Caribbean Flavor

Join chef and mixologist Nelson German and culinary anthropologist and author Andréa Lawson Gray in conversation with Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food (& Drinks!) Griot, exploring rum, sugar, and the histories that shape Caribbean flavor. Drawing from their book Caribbean Cocktails: Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora, they will examine how ingredients travel, how knowledge is passed, and how cultural expression takes form through food and drink.

Focusing on sugarcane as a foundational crop and rum as both an industrial product and cultural practice, the conversation will trace the movement of plants and people across the Caribbean and the African diaspora. Grounded in both scholarship and lived experience—including German’s Afro-Latino upbringing in New York’s Washington Heights—the discussion will consider how systems of trade, labor, and exchange continue to shape contemporary flavor.

Together, the speakers will introduce the concept of “Distillery Justice” as a framework for thinking about authorship, value, and cultural memory in food and beverage today.