Grog! Rum Rations In The 18th Century Navy

Welcome to the kitchen of the

18th

century

. I'm your host Jon Townsend and today we're talking about sailors' favorite drink,

grog

. Thank you for joining us as we savor the flavors and aromas of the

18th

century

. The main component, the important part of

grog

, is rum, and rum was very important to North America in the 18th century. It is a very important item that was traded with the West Indies throughout the east coast of North America at that time and Not only is it important as a trade item, but it is also important as part of the

rations

and provisions of the sailors of the regular soldiers and regular workers, so it's something that everyone in North America is experiencing, using and making money by exchanging it and moving forward.

It is so important to the war effort that in early 1776 Admiral Graves sends ships to the West Indies to pick up rum because they ran out of rum; It is of vital importance for the fleet at that time. So he sends a special ship and asks them to rip off parts of the ship and get more barrels so he can fill the ship with rum and bring it back because they desperately need rum for their sailors. The Navy is the only way people go to work. Shipbuilding was taking place during a Revolutionary War and shipbuilders were paid not only with regular money but also with rum during the day, each and every builder receiving his share of rum as if he were a sailor or a soldier, so we find out that they need to have this rum so that everyone is happy with their work and there are multiple references to this idea that you know it's their only comfort in life, it's the only reason they have to keep going.

Colonel Ethan Allen in captivity at one point said the conditions were terrible but they still had their provisions, their salt provisions or salt meat, salt pork and they had their rum and he thought the rum was one of the only reasons they so many people survived in that situation so they not only thought of it as something that was a comfort in life but as something that was medicinal, rum was part of what kept them healthy at least that's what he thought. The other main component of grog is water, and in the 18th century water was a complicated thing, right?

You were never quite sure if the water was safe, if it was good, if it was on board the ship, you had to go and collect all this water, put it in barrels, store it in the hold of your ship and it didn't take long, two or three weeks, a month later and the water you put in your barrels is going bad, it's turning green. It's doing all kinds of things, you know, microbes are growing in it, so the water spoils very quickly on board the ship and even if you're not on board the ship, you know that surface water can be an element questionable.

So we found that turning rum water into grog is very useful because, as you know, it sterilizes the water and in every reference to a ship's log you will find the ships as soon as they enter any type of port probably the first thing they think about it , they have to leave soon is to get fresh wood and fresh water, you have to have water for your men and the water spoils constantly. So where does grog come from? Well, in the 17th century, the British Navy began using rum instead of beer. If you were in local waters, the sailors had a ration of beer every day, but they also had these substitutes.

If you weren't in local waters, you would have Other items available and rum began to become an obvious and consistent substitute, but the problem was that sailors would withhold their rum ration for two or three days at a time, maybe more and then take it. They drank everything at once and became intoxicated. and that was very dangerous on board the ship, there was work to do, very dangerous work, hard work to do and a confused mind did not help at all. So in the 1740s, Admiral Vernon decided he would find a way to make that more difficult for them and perhaps make the rum a little less intoxicating and he made sure to mix the rum with water in a four to one ratio. . he made it more difficult to store it over a period of time and, hopefully, he thought it would poison them less if they drank it in its diluted form.

Now this term becomes this term of grog and it becomes not only a naval drink but a drink that other people would drink as well, so you will find multiple references to this idea of ​​grog from about 1750 onwards and the admiral's nickname Vernon was old grog because of the items he used as grogram fabric and that's where this term grog comes from. At least most people think that grog still lives on it and remains part of the ration of British Navy sailors until the 1970s and is part of the US Navy

rations

until about the Civil War.

So not only is it happening right there in the Revolutionary War, but it continues a hundred years later. So to mix them properly you really need a gill cup so the standard ration for almost all the references you see is half a pint per man per day and this was usually split into two parts so we need a quarter pint or half. one cup which is where the gill cup comes in which is half a cup as a half cup measurement and we created this mixture here probably a little bit stiffer than the standard serving here and I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit of lime to mine and now we have our cup of grog our standard and you can imagine, you know, you would drink this twice a day this full cup and it's actually a pretty tasty little drink, it's so simple it's just water and rum and then just that citrus hair in there, it's a medicine, obviously with all those wonderful citruses in there, and it's a very, very powerful way to drink this, and you'll find a lot of references in the 18th century not just to sailors but an ordinary landowner drinking a shot of grog.

Now, a lot of times you'll see people using a drink like this as a way to convince people to come and have a cup of grog with me and then of course you'll find those in the court records. Something bad happened. usually right after that, but grog was so ubiquitous in the 18th century on every man of war and on every merchant ship. This was a common occurrence with all the men on board. You know, the way men are is one of the ways they were kept happy in a job that was incredibly difficult and sometimes deadly quite often.

To learn more about naval rations, watch this video.