{"id":621,"date":"2010-08-16T15:01:26","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T15:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2010\/08\/splice-the-mainbrace.html"},"modified":"2010-08-16T15:01:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-16T15:01:26","slug":"splice-the-mainbrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=621","title":{"rendered":"Splice the Mainbrace"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of National Rum Day<\/a> today:<\/p>\n

Sailors have long been associated with drinking; the British Royal Navy issued daily rations of hooch to its sailors for centuries. At first, each sailor was issued a gallon of beer or wine a day, but after some storage difficulties, that was changed to a ration of hard spirits: brandy in about 1650, and rum in 1687 following the British conquest of Jamaica<\/a>. Enlisted men were allowed half a pint of neat rum twice daily, and boys got half that. The ship\u2019s purser dispensed the rations, and over time (and through slurred lips, no doubt), \u201cpurser\u201d became \u201cpusser\u201d\u2026and currently-marketed Pusser\u2019s Rum is a recreation of the blended high-strength rum<\/a> that was once served to the Royal Navy.<\/p>\n

But what do you do with a drunken sailor? Admiral Edward Vernon<\/a>, hero of the War of Jenkins\u2019 Ear<\/a>  and commander of the fleet\u2018s West Indies Squadron, was concerned with what he called \u201cthe swinish vice of drunkenness.\u201d On August 21, 1740, he ordered<\/a> that his sailors\u2019 rum be watered down:<\/p>\n

You are hereby required and directed … that the respective daily allowance … be every day mixed with the proportion of a quart of water to a half pint of rum, to be mixed in a scuttled butt kept for that purpose, and to be done upon the deck, and in the presence of the Lieutenant of the Watch who is to take particular care to see that the men are not defrauded in having their full allowance of rum… and let those that are good husbanders receive extra lime juice and sugar that it be made more palatable to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Over time, naval officials noticed that the West Indies Squadron\u2018s sailors were healthier than other sailors, and eventually ship\u2019s surgeons discovered that the lime juice added to their rum prevented scurvy – thus the nickname \u201climeys\u201c for British sailors. (And if you\u2019re keeping track, a \u201cscuttled butt\u201d is a barrel with one end removed<\/a>, and you can see how gossip would spread among the men lined up for their daily ration of rum, thus the contemporary meaning of \u201cscuttlebutt.\u201d) Admiral Vernon\u2019s nickname of \u201cOld Grog\u201d, after the waterproof grogram cloak he habitually wore, soon became the name<\/a> of the watered-down rum with lime juice and sugar<\/a>.  (Adm. Vernon was also the namesake of George Washington\u2019s home Mount Vernon, where Washington distilled rye whiskey<\/a>. History works in circles.)<\/p>\n

After arduous duties or in celebration of a victory, sailors could receive an extra ration of rum. This became known in naval slang as \u201csplicing the mainbrace<\/a>\u201d; in the days of sail, the mainbrace was a heavy piece of rigging vital to the ship\u2019s steering, and fixing it was a difficult and crucial task. After the mainbrace was spliced, it was customary for captains to order an extra drink for the crew.  These days, only the Royal Family or the Admiralty can issue the order to \u201csplice the mainbrace\u201d, generally after a fleet review<\/a> or another special occasion.<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the years, the strength and amount of the \u201ctot\u201d of rum was varied by the Admiralty, but enlisted men always got their daily ration. Each day at six bells of the forenoon watch (11:00 am for you landlubbers), the bosun\u2019s mate would pipe \u201cUp Spirits\u201d<\/a>, and the crew would assemble for their tipple and toasts to the monarch. Until 1970, that is, when concerns over impaired crew operating increasingly sophisticated warships led the House of Commons to abolish the rum ration<\/a>. This past July 31st was the fortieth anniversary of \u201cBlack Tot Day\u201d, the last day rum was routinely served aboard Her Majesty\u2019s warships<\/a>.  In Portsmouth, England, they re-enacted \u201cUp Spirits\u201d on the quayside<\/a>, but if you\u2019ve got money to burn, you can have a literal taste of history. The remaining stores of official Royal Navy rum sat in wicker-clad stone flagons in a bonded warehouse until last month's release of \u201cBlack Tot Rum: The Last Consignment<\/a>\u201d: a bottle will run you about \u00a3600, or more than $900. For the rest of us, though, we can celebrate National Rum Day with a slightly more reasonable tipple and do some mainbrace-splicing of our own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of National Rum Day today: Sailors have long been associated with drinking; the British Royal Navy issued daily rations of hooch to its sailors for centuries. At first, each sailor was issued a gallon of beer or wine a day, but after some storage difficulties, that was changed to a ration of hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ingredients","category-seen-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}