DELIVERING THE WORD THAT PAUL REVERE WAS LOADED.

For 200 years American kids have revered Paul Revere for warning the countryside that the British were coming, the British were coming, when actually he was trotting around tipsy on rum. Sometimes the best ads come from good spadework. In 1962, when we dug into the history of rum, we came upon this historical nugget. Paul Revere, the distinguished Boston silversmith, whose legendary ride of April 1775 made him a hero of the creation of our nation, had been guzzling Puerto Rican rum at Isaac Hall’s distillery on the night of his revolutionary call to arms. This was the shot heard ’round the world. When we said that this was The true story of Paul Revere we were absolutely serious. What a coup! What a discovery! What a winner! What an outrage, screamed The Daughters of the American Revolution! They bombarded Ron Rico Puerto Rican Rum with telegrams, letters, calls and threats. Which proves that nothing, but nothing, is more shocking than the absolute truth.