Not bad considering
15yr old Havana club knocks you back about £130 - £180 in this country.
Or £80 in Cuba (or less with a nice smile and paying in sterling)
And tastes fantastic!
Authentic Navy rum: Yours for £600 a bottle
Those of you with a taste for rum and 600 quid to spare might like to uncork a bottle of Black Tot "Last Consignment" British Royal Naval Rum, lovingly decanted from the official stocks held by the Senior Service since sailors' final rum ration in 1970. Black Tot rum On July 31 of that year, at precisely six bells in the …
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Friday 30th July 2010 08:28 GMT Trevor Marron
We were still getting our rum ration in 1984
In 1984, whilst at Greenham Common, the temperature fell below 0 degrees Celsius and those of us on fence guard were issued our rum ration. I was in the Royal Tank Regiment though, which had retained the rum ration from when it was part of the Royal Navy.
And yes, the rum was the real deal, poured as molasses from a raffia wrapped flagon then diluted with water.
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Tuesday 10th August 2010 11:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Army Rum
You are correct when you state that the Army continued to issue rum, long after the termination of the Royal Navy daily tot, in 1970. The Army first issued rum in the 18th Century and did so more recently in Iraq.
Unlike rum for the Royal Navy, which was purchased through the Admiralty broker and blended in the victualling yards to "the flavour preferred by the men," as stated by the 1st Lord to the Admiralty, at Westminster, on 15/2/33, Army rum was purchased by open tender and could be from various origins.
Army rum was stored in separate vats at the Admiralty victualling yards and filled into indentical 1 gallon stone flagons, also used by the Royal Navy. A WW1 Army rum jar is on display in the Imperial War Museum.
In the 1990's a consignment of Army rum, which had been stored in Germany for a number of years, was brought back to the U.K., for disposal and placed in the former Naval victualling yard, at Gosport, giving rise to the false impression that it was original Navy rum,
On 31st July, The Times report on Black Tot rum stated that "ten years ago, surplus flagons were sold off for £8 per gallon." My concern is that this rum may now been mistaken for original Royal Navy rum. Why would the Navy store rum for 40 years after the demise of the tot and after 40 years, how does anyone know the origin of the rum in sealed flagons? As the message below states, flagons from three different sources were opened, married and refilled in bottles. Once reblended, how can Black Tot rum claim to be the original Navy blend? Surely the true historic value lay in keeping the rum in the original flagons?
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Friday 30th July 2010 09:59 GMT DataFish
It was....
The last tot was given in 1970 as an official ration. But then it was still Grog and not neat rum (for those non Naval...grog was a mix of rum and water). Neat tots were still given out when I was serviing but only as "special occasion" treats. I received one after completing Artic Survival Training in Norway :o)
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Friday 30th July 2010 09:37 GMT TeeCee
Re: Strong?
I remember many years ago a friend coming back from holiday in Yugoslavia with a bottle of what looked like Decosol car upholstry* cleaner labelled "Stroh Inlander Rum".
It caused some fairly serious pain and completely removed your powers of speech. The clue was the bit on the bottle in small print where it said "86%** by volume alcohol".
It still reckon it was tape head cleaner cut with Decosol meself. It certainly tasted like it.
*The only other translucent, "luminous orange highlighter pen" coloured liquid that I am familiar with.
**To be strictly accurate, eighty-something-percent. I can't remember exactly.
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Thursday 29th July 2010 13:49 GMT FreeTard
very young
When we were nippers (16 years old) we drank 100+ year old rum, it was way over a hundred years old as we found it in my French mate's grandad stash - and he had died 30 years previously.
He was left the house by his recently deceased grandmother which was why we went over.
The bottles were all twisted like in the swashbucking movies, and we drank it wth coke and lemonade.... It must have been worth a fortune....!!!! Ah well.
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Friday 30th July 2010 08:34 GMT Trevor_Pott
@Captain Thyratron
No there's not. Now a good single malt Scotch, (Speyside preferably but occasionally from the Highlands,) that's something you take your time to appreciate. Rum? Like tequila, the purpose behind rum is inebriation and nothing more.
Quality drinks, sir…I recommend you take the time to get to know them.
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Thursday 29th July 2010 17:04 GMT John Dougald McCallum
Rum Ration
1/2 Gill Measure + about 1 pint of water was the usual drink.It was sugested that The pongos would get the Ration in stead of The Navy when they were on Arctic training exersises,the Rum Ration morphed into a beer ration1 1/2 pints or equivilent NCO and Officers could choose Spirits instead.Got to be Jolly Roger.Splice The Main Brace the weekend starts here.
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Monday 2nd August 2010 23:14 GMT Nuke
@ McCallum & Datafish:
I supervised the Rum Ration on an HM ship as a junior officer around 1969. We were in the tropics and the catering guys set up a table on deck from 1200-1300 hrs to serve it. A Petty Officer (PO) kept a register to make sure no-one came twice. About half the ratings (the ordinary sailors) on the ship took their tot. I had nothing to do except see no rules were broken.
The ration was 1/2 gill, like a pub treble. One rule was that it was served mixed with two parts of water (not "about a pint"). Rum and water were issued from copper measuring cups into a half pint glass tumbler so it was 2/3 full . The water made it "grog" not rum, and unlike rum grog does not keep which meant that the sailors could not store it up over the weeks for a big binge below decks. Another rule was that they had to drink it all within my line of sight. At that time the ratings had their own bar but it did not serve spirits.
The PO's were also entitled to their tot but their total ration was put in a single jug and one of them came to collect it. They could drink it how they liked.
The ships officers did not get the rum ration, but the wardroom bar had spirits to buy. It was truly duty-free when at sea - a shot of whisky cost 1 penny, that's probably like 5p today!
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Friday 30th July 2010 08:28 GMT Youngone
New Zealand Navy
The NZ navy discontinued splicing the mainbrace on 1 March 1990, which just shows (something).
I remember drinking some of the stuff with a bunch of ex-navy servicemen at an ANZAC day breakfast (breakfast!). Tasted like tar and made everyone win several wars before lunch if I remember right. I do remember that the Battle of the River Plate turned out to have been between a German Heavy Cruiser and 4 brave Kiwi sailors in a dinghy, and we know how that turned out for the Nazis eh? Eh? You doubt me!?.... etc.
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Friday 30th July 2010 09:59 GMT DataFish
No
It simply isn't worth £600...yes its strong and yes it has some history to it...but it's just Rum! Go over to Maritius and you can get some craking Sugar Cane rum (now that is nice stuff).
If you pay £600 for some jack tar's cast off booze you might as well go mine sweeping at your local bar...spend the £600 on something else.
I'm off to get my port and starboard scran spanners...it's breakfast time! See you when the fog clears.
Jack
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Friday 30th July 2010 11:01 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not Really...
For disclosure, I'll point out that the company I work for has bottled this rum. Forgive me for posting, but I thought I should make a few points.
@ Datafish: Any product for sale is 'worth' only what people are prepared to pay for it. As this is the last ever consignment of official Royal Navy rum, it represents the last remnant of a naval tradition that dates back to the 17th century, but which finished forty years ago. For that reason alone, it is of great interest to ex-servicemen in the Royal Navy who remember having their daily tot, as well as to the very large global community of rum aficionados and people who enjoy and appreciate naval and nautical history.
This rum was in storage in stone flagons in military depots for nearly forty years until we found it and went about the very expensive process of acquiring it, blending it and bottling it for the wider public to enjoy. We understand that to most people the idea of paying £600 for a bottle of any drink is not something that they can relate to, but we all have our own notions of value and worth, and for many people who are crazy about rum, Black Tot is a unique and genuine piece of naval history that they feel is 'worth' paying a premium price for. If it doesn't float your boat (sorry), that's fine, but a lot of people are going 'tot'-ally mad for it (ok, I'll stop now).
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Tuesday 10th August 2010 11:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Reblending?
If, as you say, you opened original stone flagons and reblended the contents, how can you then claim that this is the original Royal Navy blend? The original Royal Navy blend, Pusser's Rum has been on sale for many years, with the approval of the Admiralty and costs considerably less than £600 per bottle! The Royal Navy Sailors Fund, which provides recreational facilities for serving sailors, receives a royalty on sales.
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Monday 2nd August 2010 12:22 GMT Wommit
Pussers Rum...
I got totally pissed on the smell of that stuff when I were t'lad. I was CPO's mess man and I had to collect the rum, in a covered fanny, from the rum store.
Just as I was about to collect the couple of gallons for the Chiefs, the cask ran out and a new one had to be broached. This, together with all of the paperwork (if you thing SSADM involved lots of paper, just try opening a barrel of pussers rum) meant that I was standing in the alcohol laden rum store room air for nearly twenty minutes.
For an innocent junior such as wot I wus (and still am, I'll have you know!) this was a little too much. I was pissed, rat arsed, out of my tiny tree.
I staggered back to the Chiefs mess with the two gallons of rum in its fanny and was promptly accused of stealing some of the rum on the way over. I had motive, it was rum, and opportunity, I was twenty minutes later than normal, and they had proof, I was pissed. Court Marshal time.
Fortunately a calmer head than the president of the Chiefs Mess decided to do a little investigation and they quickly realised that was truly innocent, and totally unable to work that afternoon.
I was sent to my mess and gladly had a make-a-mend with sleep (a very rare treat in the late 60's.)
Black Friday was a sad day, at HMS Heron the CPO's tot was delivered in a hearse with most of the camp lining the route.
Beer, the sailors mind altering substance of choice.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
