Remembering 'Black Tot Day'

Forty years ago, on July 31st, 1970, the Royal Navy abolished the daily issue of rum to its seamen. The date has been remembered as 'Black Tot Day' ever since. Yachting Monthly reports:

The 40th anniversary of what is known as Black Tot Day will be marked [aboard HMS Victory in Portsmouth] with a re-enactment of Up Spirits, the serving of the rum tot to all Royal Navy sailors.

The final Up Spirits took place between 11am and 12 noon on July 31, 1970, when the last measure of Pusser's rum was served to the crews of Royal Navy ships.

It ended an enshrined 300-year tradition of a daily rum tot for each serving mariner.

Over the years, the daily measure shrank from half a pint a day in its introduction in the 17th century, to one eighth of a pint (equivalent to three modern measures) in the last century.

The rum was watered down in the Scuttlebutt and either drunk on the spot or collected in a rum fanny, or can, for the sailors' mess.




The Pusser's rum re-enactment crew, dressed in naval gear of Nelson's period, will be accompanied by the Exmouth Shanty Men singing famous old sea songs such as ‘All for me Grog' and ‘Nelson's Blood'.

The songs recall the creation of grog (a mix of rum, lime juice and sugar) and the death of Nelson whose body was shipped back to England in a rum cask to preserve it after the battle of Trafalgar. Legend says that the barrel was dry when opened - thirsty sailors had bored a hole and drunk Nelson's blood.

There's more at the link.

Fortunately for those with historic tastes, the original Admiralty-recipe 'Pusser's Rum' can still be purchased. (The term 'Pusser' is a corruption of 'Purser', who was the officer aboard ship responsible for the issue of provisions and supplies.) The recipe and all rights to it were purchased by Charles Tobias, who began producing it again in the British Virgin Islands. Today it's as strong as ever (108 proof, or 54% alcohol by volume), and is even produced in the same stills! The Pusser's Rum Web site describes them as follows:

"Navy Rum" is not just a name for dark rum. Originally it was the name of a specific type of rum distilled for the Admiralty in wooden pot stills in lieu of the normal metal ones. The distillation of rum in wood imparts a truly unique flavor that can only be described as "full and rich," making most others bland by comparison. This flavor is unique to the wooden process, and cannot be duplicated from any other type of distillation; interestingly Pusser’s is still distilled in the same original Admiralty stills. Rum that is not distilled in wood cannot achieve the unique flavor of a real Navy Rum. While others may have designated their product to be a navy rum by the mere inclusion of the phrase 'Navy Rum' on their label, they can never be a Navy Rum any more than a Rolls Royce logo placed on a Ford doesn't make a Ford a Rolls Royce. A real navy rum has to be distilled in wood.

. . .

The wooden staves of these two old, stills are impregnated with 200 years of esters and congeners - the organic compounds found naturally in wine and spirits that impart flavor to them. No other stills in the world can reproduce these flavors because all modern stills are made from metal which absorb nothing, and thus have nothing to impart in the way of flavor to a spirit during the distillation process. In contrast, wood soaks up the flavor of whatever it contains. In the case of the wooden stills, continuous usage over hundreds of years has made the wood of these stills extraordinarily flavorful.

Following distillation, all rums are aged for some time in wood because aging in wood imparts smoothness and flavor. But unlike other rums which are bland out of the still, Pusser's begins its aging process with a rich flavor already in place from the distillation process, one that would not be possible without the wooden distillation. Thus when the aging process is completed, the full flavor of Pusser's surpasses by far that of any other rum because the wooden distillation provides an extraordinary head start over anything distilled in metal.

While the rich flavor of Pusser's Rum is natural, most other major rum brands add flavoring agents and sugar to make their products smoother and to give them body. By contrast, Pusser's uses no flavoring agents or sugar. It is all natural.

There's more at the link. If you're interested in rum, and/or in the history of drinking, there's a wealth of information at the site. It's worth a visit. (I apologize if this sounds like a commercial for Pusser's Rum: it's not intended as such. Still, I really like the stuff, both for its taste and for the history behind it. They're not paying me to write this, nor will I receive any free product or other consideration from them. I just regard it as the finest rum in the world.)

This advertisement for Pusser's Rum illustrates the history of the rum issue in the Royal Navy. (There are a few seconds of darkness before the video begins.)

I'm not sure whether the abolition of the rum ration did anything to improve the operational efficiency of the Royal Navy. By now, so many of its ships have been abolished that it's no more than a shadow of the force that allowed Britannia to claim it 'ruled the waves'. Perhaps if they brought back the rum ration, it might help to improve the otherwise battered morale of the shrunken Fleet!



Peter