rum, navy , is a style of rum that is traditionally robustly flavored and high-proof. Its origins stem from the British colonization of parts of the Caribbean in the mid-seventeenth century, which required frequent and long voyages by sea. Rum soon became an acceptable way to keep up morale and discipline on board under what were typically terrible conditions. A spirits ration became part of official British naval regulations in 1731 (as an alternative to the traditional daily gallon of beer per man), and in 1775 rum became integral to those rations through a Parliamentary act.
By the end of the eighteenth century, rum had become a commodity stored and aged in warehouses on the London docks and traded by brokers who also blended stocks to create their own brands. The British Royal Navy was one of the largest rum customers in the world and required a high volume of consistent product. For nearly 190 years (1784–1970), a single broker, ED & F Man, sourced most of the rums used, providing a mix of different styles and ages from several British colonies (including Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad), and delivered it to the Navy’s supply depot at Deptford, in the London docklands. There it would spend two years aging and blending in a sort of solera of massive, open-topped wooden tanks. The final result was shipped out at 4.5 degrees under proof (54.5 percent ABV), following an 1866 regulation. Although its composition changed over the years, moving from an entirely pot-stilled blend heavy on Jamaican rum to one whose backbone was column-distilled demerara rum, the final product was always strong enough and richly flavored enough to stand up to the water with which naval regulations insisted it had to be mixed on issue.
During this era, sailors were getting as much as a half pint a day (240 ml) as their daily rum ration (or “tot”). Though this amount would be cut in 1824 to a gill or quarter-pint (150 ml in the new Imperial system of measures) and again to a half-gill (75 ml) in 1851, the daily tot, invariably mixed into “grog” (rum and water), was still part of a formal ritual that continued for centuries on board Royal Navy ships, announced daily by the bosun’s call of “Up spirits!” However, as ships became more technologically complex and armed with nuclear weapons, it was determined that the rum ration should be abolished. The last day of the ration, July 31, 1970, was nicknamed Black Tot Day, complete with mock burials at sea and sailors wearing black armbands.
While the daily ration may have ended, the style of rum remained popular primarily in the United Kingdom and eastern Canada, and variations of this style are still sold today as “navy style” rums.
See rum and spirits in the military.
Pack, A. J. Nelson’s Blood: The Story of Naval Rum. Emsworth, UK: Kenneth Mason, 1982.
Pietrek, Matt. “Setting the Record Straight on Navy Rum.” Cocktail Wonk, December 5, 2019. https://cocktailwonk.com/2019/12/setting-record-straight-british-navy-rum.html (accessed April 1, 2021).
By: Martin Cate
Issuing the daily rum ration in the Royal Navy, 1937. It has already been mixed in the large, brass-fixtured tub with twice its volume of water to make grog.
Wondrich Collection.
Issuing the daily rum ration in the Royal Navy, 1937. It has already been mixed in the large, brass-fixtured tub with twice its volume of water to make grog. Source: Wondrich Collection.