7.31.1970 – 7.31.2020 Black Tot Day 50 Anniversary

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7.31.1970 – 7.31.2020  BLACK TOT DAY 50 ANNIVERSARY

                            1. “ORDER TO CAPTAINS”

Next July 31 marks the 50th Anniversary of BLACK TOT DAY, the last day on which the British Navy issued sailors with a daily rum ration. The TOT – as the daily distribution of rum (or better, of grog) was commonly called  –  is  one of the most famous rum-related events and it is undoubtedly important in the history of rum, even though retrospectively it has been charged with sincere nostalgia, some myths and a great deal of marketing. Probably – COVID-19 permitting – the anniversary will be marked and celebrated by rum lovers worldwide.  

But we at Got Rum? like to be always one step ahead, so we have decided to dedicate the June column to the first in a short series of articles dedicated to Black Tot Day and to the rum distribution ceremony in the British Navy, the so-called Up Spirits. And we also like to do things properly, so we are going to start from the very beginning. The articles rely largely on J. Pack’s “Nelson’s Blood. The Story of Naval Rum” (1995), the quotes are from this interesting book. Enjoy the reading.

The world we live in has been shaped to a large degree by the rush to conquer the oceans, which Western Europe started in the XV century. We tend to forget that, in that race, England started last, after Portugal, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Only at the end of the 1500s, roughly a century after the Discovery of America, did the English begin to deal with America seriously. First, English privateers like Francis Drake and pirates attacked and plundered the treasures of Spanish America, but without trying to settle there. Then, in the 1620s, some semi-independent enterprises settled in some little and marginal islands like Barbados and Saint Kitts. Finally, in the 1650s, Oliver Crowell imagined an ambitious “Western Design” and sent a fleet to attack and conquer the large Spanish Caribbean island of Hispaniola, present-day Santo Domingo, and Haiti. For the first time England attempted to conquer and hold a large and important colony of one of its European rivals, Spain.  On a cold 26 December 1654 the fleet left England: 37 men-of-war under the command of Vice-Admiral William Penn and with General Robert Venable in charge of an army of 3.000 soldiers.  After a one month’s voyage, in late January 1655 the fleet reached Barbados, at that time the most important British colony in the Caribbean. After a short stay to embark provisions and more troops, among them many indentured servants that wanted to flee the island, it moved to Hispaniola. There the fleet landed the army ashore to attack the town of Santo Domingo. The attack was ill prepared and worse carried out, and the reaction of the Spanish cavalry was strong and effective. After a crushing ground defeat, the English troops retired in disarray and had to re-embark quickly. Maybe only the absence of a Spanish fleet avoided a complete disaster.

After this crushing defeat, Penn and Venable were very worried: to return home defeated and with empty hands could be very dangerous for them. So, in May 1655 they decided to attack Jamaica, at that time a small, poor Spanish island, sparsely populated and virtually undefended. This time the amphibious attack was prepared with care and it was a success, England took possession of Jamaica. But this little success did not appease Cromwell: he was so devastated by the Hispaniola disaster that he fell ill and punished Penn and Venable sending them to the Tower.

This almost forgotten piece of history is important for us because it was in Jamaica in 1655 that rum was for the first time distributed on board the ships of the English Navy. The thing happened quite unofficially and we don’t have many details about it. But we know that rum was distributed to the crews instead of the customary daily allowance of beer. English sailors usually had two beverages while at sea, water and beer. The daily ration of beer was one gallon. Both were supplied in wooden casks stored in the holds of the ships in a filthy and unhealthy environment. Often the water sources were not clean, and anyway the water deteriorated quickly and became undrinkable in few weeks. Beer lasted longer, but it became sour in few weeks. And things got worse with the long Oceanic voyages. “Nothing doth displease the seamen so as to sour beer” complained Lord Howard in 1588.

When abroad, the captains were allowed to buy wine, and sometimes also brandy. But they were expensive and often produced by enemies. Besides, in the Caribbean they were difficult to find on a regular basis and in the quantity needed by thousands of men. On the contrary, in Barbados and the West Indies a new, strong beverage was cheap and easily available in huge quantity: Rum. With its alcoholic strength it occupied relatively less space in the hold than beer and moreover it was produced by English subjects. And, maybe more importantly, rum did not deteriorate when stored on board, on the contrary, it improved. Finally, if mixed with rum the same water stored on board was drinkable for longer periods. So rum began to be part of the ordinary daily rations of British sailors and soldiers in the West Indies. For decades, though, its diffusion relied on the personal decisions of captains and officers on the ground, without any standard rules for the whole Navy.

Only much later, in 1731, did the “Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea” state: “Of the Provisions. In case it should be thought for the Service … in ships employed on foreign voyages, it is to be observed that a pint of wine or half a pint of brandy, rum or arrack, hold provision to a gallon of beer”. Navy Rum was born.

Meanwhile Big History went on. In April 1731 the British brig Rebecca was sailing, probably not far from La Havana, when a Spanish guardacostas stopped and boarded it looking for smuggled goods. What really happened on board is not clear and at the moment it seemed a trifling event. But seven years later, in 1738, the Rebecca’s Captain Robert Jenkins exhibited to a committee of the House of Commons his own left ear, cut off by the Spanish that – he said - also pillaged the ship and insulted the British King. British public opinion was already angry with Spain for other “outrages” on British ships and war began in October 1739, later called “War of Jenkins’ ear”.

A large British fleet soon set sail for the West Indies under the command of Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, who became a national hero thanks to the conquest of the important Spanish town of Portobello, on the Atlantic coast of what is now Panama. Later on things didn’t go so well for him, but this is a matter of no interest to us now. For every rum enthusiast, his lasting fame is due to the invention of Grog. Let’s see.

At that time, in the West Indies a daily distribution of rum as an alternative to beer was already quite normal. Sailors usually drank it pure, all the allowance down in one gulp. It was a very dangerous practice, the cause of many accidents in the rigging at sea and also of many problems of discipline with a sequel of harsh punishment. We must not forget  that at that time the alcoholic strength of rum was probably much higher than what we are used to today. In any case, on board British warships in the West Indies, diseases, accidents, and punishments (and desertion) ravaged the crews, much more harshly than enemy weapons, “Until 1756, surgery and medicine in the navy had been rudimentary. During the seven years of war that followed, for every man killed in action, at least eighty were lost by disease or desertion! Scurvy remained the scourge of the navy”. Actually, ships were often undermanned.

Worried about the health of the sailors and the efficiency of his ships, Vernon tackled the problem head on. First of all he consulted the captains and the surgeons of his fleet, then he signed an Order that deserves to be published entirely. 

ORDER TO CAPTAINS   Burford, at Port Royal, August 21, 1740

“Whereas it manifestly appears by the returns made to my general order of the 4th of August, to be the unanimous opinion of both Captains and Surgeons, that the pernicious custom of the seamen drinking their allowance of rum in drams, and often at once, is attended with many fatal effects to their morals as well to their health, which are visibly impaired thereby, and many of their lives shortened by it, besides the ill consequences arising from stupefying their rational qualities, which makes them heedlessly slaves to every passion; and which have their unanimous opinion cannot be better remedied than by ordering their half pint of rum to be daily mixed with a quart of water, which they that are good husbandmen, may, from the saving of their salt provisions and bread, purchase sugar and limes to make more palatable to them. 

You are therefore hereby required and directed, as you tender both the spiritual and temporal welfare of his Majesty’s service, and preserving sobriety and good discipline in his Majesty’s Service, to take particular care that rum be no more served in specie to any of the ship’s company under your command, but the respective daily allowance of half a pint a man for all your officers and ship’s company, be every day mixed with the proportion of a quart of water to every half pint of rum, to be mixed in scuttled butt kept for that purpose, and to be done upon 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 when so mixed it is to be served to them in two servings in the day, the one between the hours of 10 and 12 in the morning, and the other between 4 and 6 in the afternoon.

And you are to take care to have other scuttled butts to air and sweeten their water for their drinking at other times, and to give strict charge to your Lieutenants in their respective Watches to be very careful to prevent any rum and all spirituous liquor being privately conveyed on board the ship by your own boats or any others, and both you and they must expect to answer for ill-consequences that may result from any negligence in the due execution of this order.…"

First of all, praise be given to those who invented the metric system. The history of systems of measurements before it was adopted, and in Britain and the US even afterwards, is a real quagmire, with the added complexity that in the past units of measures often changed name and dimensions depending on the content (for example, liquids or grain), the Country, the town, and the years. In addition to that, pre-industrial production techniques were not able to manufacture standard barrels, always of the same dimensions. Luckily, it is enough for us to know that  “a quart” was the fourth part of a gallon, roughly 1 liter, and half a pint was about a quarter of a liter. Therefore, the new beverage had roughly 1 part of rum for 4 parts of water. Sailors did not like such a novelty, they wanted to get drunk with real rum, not to drink it watered. But discipline was cast-iron and they had to accept it. Drunkenness on board did not disappear, but it decreased significantly and so did accidents and punishments. In summary, the innovation was a success. The new beverage had no name, but with their traditional flair for names, sailors soon gave it one. Vernon’s nickname was “Old Grogram” from a waterproof cloak he usually wore, made of a fabric called Grogram. So his drink was called “Grog”.

At the beginning the order applied only to the fleet commanded by Vernon. Later, additional regulations were made to the original 1731 version of the Regulations and Instructions Relating to His Majesty’s Service at Sea and the 1756 Regulations contained the first official ruling from the Admiralty that rum was to be mixed with water.Then, over time the allowance decreased and was distributed only once a day, creating  one of the most impressive, enduring, typical, and frankly astounding, rituals of the Royal Navy. Usually called Up Spirits and also simply Tot, it lasted for 200 years, as we will see in future articles.

Marco Pierini