This is one of the oldest traditional Cumberland desserts dating back to the East Indies trading routes. During this time Whitehaven was the second biggest port in England, bringing products like ginger, dates, rum, molasses and spices to Britain. The canny Cumbrian seamen were given a bonus by the ship owners of some of the items they were carrying. This led them to invent a date, rum and ginger flan called Rum Nicky. It is assumed that the word nicky derives from the fact that the shortage of ingredients to complete the flan were often ‘nicked’ (stolen) from the ship.