I had a friend who used to do that every summer....I don't think she added rum....I think the natural fermentation of the fruit provided the alcohol. I remember sitting in her kitchen drinking tea and listening to the lid on the rum pot chatter as the gasses escaped.
Perhaps she did add fruit to start it.....sadly I don't remember.....and at this stage neither does she.

I use brandy for my fruit liqueurs, and vodka (has to be higher end for no off taste) to up the alcohol content if I need to. I can't remember the level of "proof" it needed, I thought it was 80 . . . but I don't know, I think some brandys are 100 proof.

In the back of my brain is a faint recollection of a tutti-frutti sort of thing that you start with a pinch of yeast....and keep adding fruit....the alcohol comes from the fermentation of the fruits....seems too that maybe it starts with raisins in apple juice with a pinch of yeast....and then just add other fruits....but never apples...but strawberries, raspberries not blue berries, then peaches apricots and plums...
I have searched the web but can't find anything like that.....

I've been doing it for years -- with the first strawberries, you add sugar (and I add brandy) (2 cups strawberries, 2 cups sugar, 2 cups brandy) and then add 2 cups of each fruit as it comes in season along with 2 cups of sugar. Stir it each day until the sugar is dissolved. After about a month after the addition of the last fruit it is ready. And yes, it keeps that way -- it's fermented. I use it on ice cream and pound cake.

Yeah....but I am remembering a recipe that produced it's own alcohol....no need to add any alcohol.

Apologies in advance if anyone finds this offensive, but that sounds like 'Pruno'...

http://www.lamag.com/drinkrecipes/how-to-make-prison-wine-the-craft-version/

Sorry, just couldn't resist ; J

Same principle...when I was in college, any liquor was strictly forbidden in the dorms...and we were too young to buy it at the "package store". So we bought a jug of un-pasteurized cider in the fall, put in a few raisins in it for sweetness and covered the top with a nylon stocking and a rubber band and stuck it in the back of the closet for about 3 months. By then it was January, and you hung the jug out your window or put it on the fire escape to freeze, leaving the pure alcohol in the bottom, un frozen.
I started a batch once but it made our clothes smell like a combination of cider mill and beer hall, so we tossed it out before it got "good".

Arley, brandy will be fine if that's what you like. My Aunt LulaBelle used to make a "rum pot" every year, but she didn't always use rum, sometimes she used the cheapest vodka she could get her hands on and one disastrous year she used tequila. The only purpose for the alcohol that I can see is to preserve the fruit, so whatever tastes good to you will work.

Her process was to take whatever fruit was in season, put a cup of fruit and about the same amount of sugar, maybe a little less, in the bottom of the crock. Although pineapple has never grown in Michigan, for some reason she usually started with that. Add enough booze to cover the fruit/sugar mixture and put the lid on the crock. Then, when strawberries were ripe, in went the layer of fruit and sugar, more booze to cover. Cherries were usually next, then peaches or apricots, plums if she had some, raspberries were good. When the crock was full or she was out of booze and fruit, the crock got put away until Christmas. That's when the guys drank the booze, the "ladies" ate the fruit with pound cake or ice cream, and my Mother liked to add a bit of the liquid to 7-Up or Squirt with a little fruit in the bottom of the glass.

My Aunt Ellen did the same thing with just sour cherries and sugar and vodka and called it "Cherry Bounce". That was also consumed with 7-Up or soda water, and the fruit ladled over something sweet.

We found that rhubarb made a lovely color but was too sour, plus it's a vegetable and not a high acid fruit. Apples and pears stayed too crunchy, blueberries and purple grapes made an ugly color but tasted good, as did blackberries. Elderberries seemed to add no flavor of their own, but made the mixture dark.

Be adventurous, and enjoy, but be careful, that fruit has more "kick" than you might think.

Annie