Marine Corps Gazette - November 2009

Splice the
Main Brace
The history of rum in the Navy and Marine Corps
by LCDR Joseph D. Haines, Medical Corps, USN

Every New Year’s Day, the United States Marine Band ser- enades the Commandant at his quarters in Washington, DC, and in thanks, the Commandant issues a traditional tot of hot rum punch and breakfast. This is the last surviving official issue of rum in the United States Armed Forces. However, rum is as much a part of the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ tradition as the sea itself.

Today, the tradition of rum is unofficially perpetuated as the “grog bowl” at formal messes or the “dining in.” Rum was first introduced to the Sea Service by British VADM William Penn, who in 1655 issued a daily allotment of rum to his sailors. The tradition was supposedly started to give the sailors a beverage that wouldn’t rot in barrels and also would boost the spirits of men on long voyages.

The source of Penn’s rum was Jamaica, which had recently been seized by the English from Spain. Thus began a 300-year tradition in the Royal Navy. The issuance of rum became part of naval regulations in 1732 and continued until the daily ration of rum was abolished on 31 July 1970. Predictably, the old “tars” (sailors) were none too pleased with the loss of their daily tot. “Up spirits,” the call that seamen heard each day signaling them to report to the deck for their tot of rum, had passed into history.

The official reason for rum’s demise was the fact that a blood alcohol level was not compatible with the increasingly mechanical and technological requirements of modern warfare. Ample scientific evidence revealed a significant drop in performance following alcohol

>LCDR Haines is currently assigned as the flight surgeon in the Aerospace Medicine Residency Program, Naval Air Station Pensacola, FL.

consumption. Yet, the passing of the tradition was universally mourned in the Royal Navy.

The history of rum is a fascinating story. It was probably first brewed in Barbados, West Indies, in 1650, where it was made from cane sugar by British planters. It was variously known as “kill devil,” “rumbustion,” or “rumbullion.”

. . . the tradition of rum
is unofficially per-
petuated as the “grog
bowl”. . . .

Rumbullion is an old Devonshire word meaning “a great tumult,” which certainly describes rum’s effects.

Rum became a standard currency in the slave trade. Islands in the West Indies raised the cane and extracted molasses from it. The molasses was exported to New England where it was distilled into rum. The New Englanders then shipped the rum to Africa where they traded it for slaves, who were brought back on the return voyage and sold for huge profits.

The slave trade created New England’s maritime supremacy and many

fortunes for the present-day “old money” families of Boston and Salem, MA, and Newport, RI. The U.S. Constitution forbade the slave trade in 1808; however, the last known slaver to unload its contraband human cargo in Mobile, AL, in 1859 was a New England Yankee ship.

Since rum was both portable and relatively unspoilable compared to beer and wine, it quickly became a staple aboard ship. Predictably, seamen swore by its healthful properties. Charles Coulombe, author of Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink That Conquered the World (Citadel, 2004), tells this story from the HMS Bounty:

When Captain Bligh and his seventeen companions were put in an open boat by the HMS Bounty mutineers, Fletcher Christian’s conscience forced him to leave his former commander three gallons of rum. On their epic journey over thousands of miles of ocean, navigating solely by the stars, the captain issued each of his men a daily teaspoon of rum. To this daily ration, he attributed not losing a single man.

In 1784 the brokering rights for supplying rum to the Royal Navy were awarded to James Man. The Man family retained the brokerage until the rum ration was banned in 1970. The Royal Navy rum had its own special recipe and was known as “Pusser’s Rum,” a corruption of the word purser, the individual responsible for the acquisition and distribution of shipboard rum.