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Pusser's Rum is a brand name of rum produced by Pusser's Rum Ltd., based in the British Virgin Islands. Nine years after the Royal Navy discontinued the daily rum ration in 1970, the company was founded to produce the rum from the original Royal Navy recipe, [1] using a blend of five West Indian rums.
"Pusser" is Royal Navy slang for a purser, a ship's supply officer, now called a Logistics Officer. Thus the word came to connote "one hundred per cent Service," as in "pusser's issue." "Pusser's issue" applies to anything supplied by the Royal Navy, such as a "pusser's grip", a canvas bag that sailors may use instead of a suitcase (it folds flat and is thus easy to stow on board ship).
The Royal Navy issued the last tot (ration) to "the fleet" on 31 July 1970. Since then, this has been known in Royal Naval Slang as "Black Tot Day." [2] The remaining rum stocks were put up for auction. They were bought by Brian Cornford, shipped to Gibraltar and held in a secure bonded warehouse. As each visiting Royal Navy ship visited Gibraltar, it was the task of Cornford and his general manager, John Kania, to supply individual, wax-dated, corked, wicker-covered demijohns containing full strength (approx 110 proof) to the ships. When the individual gallon jars were finally sold, the large wooden barrels were tapped. It was found that over the years some of the contents in each wood barrel had evaporated, lowering the alcohol concentration somewhat. The barrelled rum was decanted into litre bottles and sold primarily to RN, RAF and Army messes and selected local pubs.
Some of this rum still pops up in premium auction houses. Because of the wax seal the alcohol concentration is similar to when it was bottled. It attracts high prices both because it is aged spirits, and because of its historical significance. [ citation needed ]
In 1979, nearly a decade after the Royal Navy abandoned the custom of the daily tot of rum, company founder Charles Tobias obtained the rights to blending information associated with the naval rum ration and formed the company to produce the spirit according to the original Admiralty recipe, a blend of five West Indian rums without colouring agents. [1]
In 1989, Pusser's Rum Ltd. filed a US trademark for the name and recipe for the Painkiller, a cocktail from the Virgin Islands made with rum, cream of coconut, pineapple juice, and orange juice. When a Tiki bar named Painkiller opened in the Lower East Side of New York City in May 2011, Pusser's sent a cease and desist order to owners Giuseppe Gonzalez and Richard Boccato, both for the bar's name and for selling Painkiller cocktails made with rums other than Pusser's. [3] Gonzalez and Boccato reached an out-of-court settlement with Pusser's, which included them renaming the bar to PKNY. In response to the news, numerous bartenders organized a boycott against Pusser's. [4]
As part of the agreement with the Admiralty granting Tobias the right to produce Pusser's Rum to the original specification, the Royal Navy Sailors’ Fund, a naval charity more commonly called the ‘Tot’ Fund, receives a substantial donation from the worldwide sales of the rum on an ongoing basis. [5]
Rum and Coke, or the Cuba libre, is a highball cocktail consisting of cola, rum, and in many recipes lime juice on ice. Traditionally, the cola ingredient is Coca-Cola ("Coke") and the alcohol is a light rum such as Bacardi; however, the drink may be made with various types of rums and cola brands, and lime juice may or may not be included.
Mojito is a traditional Cuban punch. The cocktail often consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar, lime juice, soda water, and mint. Its combination of sweetness, citrus, and herbaceous mint flavors is intended to complement the rum, and has made the mojito a popular summer drink.
The Mai Tai is a cocktail made of rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat syrup, and lime juice. It is one of the characteristic cocktails in Tiki culture.
Grog is a term used for a variety of alcoholic beverages.
The daiquiri is a cocktail whose main ingredients are rum, citrus juice, and sugar or other sweetener.
The term punch refers to a wide assortment of drinks, both non-alcoholic and alcoholic, generally containing fruits or fruit juice. The drink was introduced from the Indian subcontinent to England by employees of the East India Company in the late 17th century. Punch is usually served at parties in large, wide bowls, known as punch bowls.
A purser is the person on a ship principally responsible for the handling of money on board. On modern merchant ships, the purser is the officer responsible for all administration and supply. Frequently, the cooks and stewards answer to the purser as well. They were also called a pusser in British naval slang.
The gimlet is a cocktail made of gin and lime cordial. A 1928 description of the drink was: gin, and a spot of lime. A description in the 1953 Raymond Chandler novel The Long Goodbye stated that "a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else." This is in line with the proportions suggested by The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), which specifies one half gin and one half lime juice. However, modern tastes are less sweet, and generally provide for up to four parts gin to one part lime cordial.
"Splice the mainbrace" is an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with an alcoholic drink. Originally an order for one of the most difficult emergency repair jobs aboard a sailing ship, it became a euphemism for authorized celebratory drinking afterward, and then the name of an order to grant the crew an extra ration of rum or grog.
A Scorpion Bowl is a communally shared alcoholic tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl traditionally decorated with wahine or hula-girl island scenes and meant to be drunk through long straws. Bowl shapes and decorations can vary considerably. Starting off as a single-serve drink known as the Scorpion cocktail, its immense popularity as a bowl drink in tiki culture is attributed to Trader Vic.
A "fizz" is a mixed drink variation on the older sours family of cocktail. Its defining features are an acidic juice and carbonated water. It typically includes gin or rum as its alcoholic ingredient.
A Painkiller is a rum cocktail whose name is trademarked by Pusser's Rum Ltd. It is their signature drink. It is often associated with the British Virgin Islands, its place of origin. The Painkiller is a blend of rum with 4 parts pineapple juice, 1 part cream of coconut and 1 part orange juice, well shaken and served on the rocks with a generous amount of fresh grated nutmeg on top. One serving may be made with two, three, or four ounces of rum.
Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels of oak. While associated with the Caribbean due to its Barbadian origin, rum is nowadays produced in nearly every major sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Philippines, where Tanduay Distillers, the largest producer of rum worldwide, has its headquarters.
The Navy Grog was a popular rum-based drink served for many years at the Polynesian-themed Don the Beachcomber restaurants; it is still served in many so-called tiki restaurants and bars. First created by Donn Beach, who almost single-handedly originated the tiki cultural fad of the 1940s and 1950s, it was one of dozens of rum concoctions that he, and later Trader Vic and numerous other imitators, sold in exotic tropical settings. Not quite as potent as the Beachcomber's more famous Zombie, it was, nevertheless, shown on the menu as being limited to two, or sometimes three, to a customer. Reportedly, Phil Spector consumed at least two Trader Vic’s Navy Grogs at the Beverly Hilton restaurant, without eating any food, the night he later killed actress Lana Clarkson.
Gosling Brothers Limited is a Bermudan company primarily concerned with blending and distributing rum, importing and distributing spirits on the island, and maintaining a retail presence.
Black Tot Day was the last day on which the Royal Navy issued sailors with a daily rum ration.
The rum ration was a daily amount of rum given to sailors on Royal Navy ships. It was abolished in 1970 after concerns that the intake of strong alcohol would lead to unsteady hands when working machinery.
HM Victualling Yard, Deptford was a Royal Navy Victualling Yard established alongside Deptford Royal Dockyard on the River Thames. There was victualling activity on the site for the best part of 300 years from the mid-17th century through to the early 1960s.
The test pilot cocktail is a vintage tiki drink invented by Donn Beach. Beach was known for changing his recipes over time, and multiple versions of the test pilot attributed to both him and others make the cocktail one of his more frequently imitated and varied tiki drinks. Test pilot recipes call for multiple rums and typically include the use of falernum syrup and lime juice. The more popular also include Pernod (pastis/absinthe) and bitters.