Black Tot Day

On this day 40 years ago sailors suddenly had no more reason to go to sea. On the 31st July 1970, at 11am – or 6 bells during the forenoon watch – the Royal Navy ladled out their last tots of rum to each and every seaman afloat. An eighth of a pint – about 70mls – was the measure, although when rum tots first appeared around 1731 each man received a half pint – and that was a pre-Imperial half pint, so roughly 235mls.

Between 1731 and 1970 the tot went through various service manifestations. After a while it was watered down at a ratio of 3 parts rum to 1 part water, then 2:1; the tot was also broken into two serves – morning and evening; and it even had lime juice added to help prevent scurvy. A kind of prescription Mai Tai…

But in the end Britain’s House of Commons decided that modern war ships had too much gadgetry in them to be operated safely by drunken sailors. The tot was abolished, replaced by an extra can of beer per man per day. Which going all the way back to 1731 was what rum had itself replaced – a wine gallon of beer a day was the sailor’s right in the early 18th Century. A wine gallon? Yes, about 3.7 litres. Or 10 stubbies. It was small beer, though, roughly 2.5% alcohol by volume. Which I think makes it sound even worse. Try drinking 10 stubbies of light beer day in day out and see how intellectually uplifted you become…

It would be nice to think there is a navy somewhere still serving the daily tot of rum, but I’m not sure. The Royal Australian Navy abolished the rum tot in 1921 – the first Commonwealth country to do so. We’ve been a bunch of Nannies longer than I thought.