Where's the rum gone? How the temperance movement took on the Royal Navy

'I’d rather have them three sheets to the wind on occasion than have a mutiny on my hands,’ opined Capt Jack Aubrey to the ship’s surgeon, Dr Stephen Maturin, when he complained about the crew’s drunkenness.

Based on the novels of Patrick O’Brian, the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World may be a work of fiction, but the historical seafaring attitude towards drink is not.

Yet how the Royal Navy has declined since the heroic times of the Napoleonic Wars. In a bit of jobsworth ’elf and safetyism, it was announced at the end of January that sailors on board ships would be expected to stick to the Government’s recommended limit of 14 units. That’s about six pints. A week!

What’s more, ships must have two dry days each week and sailors will not be allowed more than three units a day — about a pint and a half. It’s tragic to see a great institution brought down by the clipboard-wielding classes, but the rot actually set in 56 years ago when the daily rum ration (about an eighth of a pint) was discontinued — a tradition that had kept Britain safe for hundreds of years.

At 11am on July 31, 1970 — a day that became known as Black Tot Day — sailors received their final daily issue of Admiralty blend Pusser’s Rum. This dark day was not only a bitter blow to sailors — men who had relied on this nautical nectar to boost morale and ease the pain of unforgiving labour — but it also saw the end of a complex system of purchasing and blending that had evolved over hundreds of years. Navy rum was a rum like no other.

In the early days of the Royal Navy, however, the spirit of choice was brandy. This changed when the Spanish ceded Jamaica to England in 1670. This large Caribbean island produced masses of sugar cane worked by African slaves. The by-product, molasses, was distilled into rum. By 1731, the daily tot had been institutionalised, a tradition that would last 239 years.

To ensure the Navy wasn’t being cheated, the purser would mix the rum with gunpowder and put a flame to it. If the rum caught fire it was the right strength, dubbed ‘proof’ (a modern 57% abv). Too weak and it wouldn’t light, too strong and it would explode. Proof rum was watered down slightly for the obvious safety reasons. With rum this strong, it was a problem keeping the men soberish until, in 1740, Admiral Edward Vernon introduced a kind of proto-Mojito. This consisted of one part rum to four parts water with brown sugar and lime juice. Vernon was known as ‘Old Grog’ because of the cloak he wore made of a water-proof fabric called grogram, from which where we get the word ‘grog’.

The lime juice in Old Grogram’s cocktail helped prevent scurvy, which was part of the reason why the Royal Navy was such an effective fighting force — its sailors were much healthier than their Spanish or French rivals. Until 1850, sailors would get rum in the morning and evening, but the latter tot ended in 1850. On special occasions extra rations would be issued with the cry: ‘Splice the main-brace!’

Not everyone approved, however. Throughout the 19th century, temperance campaigners tried to ban the rum ration, but the Royal Navy held firm. Oceans of rum were required to defend the British Empire. By the end of the Second World War, there were about 800,000 sailors serving and amazingly, one company, ED&F Man, supplied all the Royal Navy’s needs from 1784 to 1970. Rum from all over the Caribbean would land at the aptly named Rum Quay at West India Dock in London E14. From there it would go to the vast naval victualling yard at Deptford in Kent, where it would be aged for two years in a 250,000-gallon vatting system before it was sweetened with caramel and sent out on ships.

The blend would change over time. According to Mark Pietrek and Alexandre Gabriel’s book Exploring 300 Years of Royal Navy Rum and its Techniques, initially, Barbados dominated, followed by Jamaica, which was in turn superseded by Guyana. Gabriel’s company Planteray makes a replica called Mister Fogg Navy Rum after a late employee of ED&F Man. It’s blended from Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana and Jamaica rum and aged in the Caribbean and, heretically, France. I’m not sure Capt Aubrey would approve.

Although life at sea would have been hard and dangerous, a tot of rum would have made life a little sweeter. After Black Tot Day, sailors were assured that they would be allowed three beers a day instead. Now even this moderate allowance has been removed. Who’d want to run away to a life at sea these days?

Henry Jeffreys is the author of ‘Empire of Booze’ (Allen & Unwin, £12.99)