In the Royal Navy, sucking the monkey, bleeding the monkey, or tapping the admiral [1] was the practice of sucking liquor from a cask through a straw. [2] This usually involved making a small hole with a gimlet in a keg or barrel and using a straw to suck out the contents. It was known for people to die from alcohol poisoning by this practice. [3]
Admiral Horatio Nelson was killed in the Battle of Trafalgar by a French sniper while topside his ship, HMS Victory. Following his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson's body was preserved in a cask of brandy, or rum, to allow transport back to England. Due to damage sustained in the battle, HMS Victory first went to Gibraltar for repairs. There the cask was drained and replaced with a wine spirit. Upon arrival, however, the story goes that the cask was opened and found to be empty of brandy/rum. The pickled body was removed and, upon inspection, it was discovered that the sailors had drilled a hole in the bottom of the cask and drunk all the brandy/rum. Thus, this tale serves as a basis for the term "Nelson's blood" being used to describe brandy/rum.
The Sunderland Daily Echo referred to ‘local naval hero,’ John Waterhouse as ‘one of those who tapped the Admiral’ when he was on board Nelson’s ship, an act which caused permanent injury to his hand when it was crushed in the process of tipping the cask. [4]
The details of the story are disputed, as many historians claim the cask contained French brandy, whilst others claim instead the term originated from a toast to Admiral Nelson. [5] Variations of the story, involving different notable corpses, and different spirits, have been in circulation for many years. The official record states merely that the body was placed in "refined spirits" and does not go into further detail. [6] [7]
The use of the term 'tapping the Admiral' to mean secretly drinking from a barrel of rum or other spirit, pre-dates the Admiral Nelson story. The term appeared in a Caledonian Mercury article, in 1790 and was referred to as 'still a favourite practical joke with the jolly tars' [8] suggesting it was already a well-established euphemistic term for secretly drinking from the Navy's stores.
In Kentish Town, north London, "Tapping the Admiral", a pub recognised for the high quality of its beer, [9] has been named after the tale. [10]
Draught beer, also spelt draft, is beer served from a cask or keg rather than from a bottle or can. Draught beer served from a pressurised keg is also known as keg beer.
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with caramel colouring to imitate the effect of aging, and some are produced using a combination of aging and colouring. Varieties of wine brandy can be found across the winemaking world. Among the most renowned are Cognac and Armagnac from south-western France.
Grog is a term used for a variety of alcoholic beverages.
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, usually alcoholic beverages; a small barrel or cask is known as a keg.
Trafalgar Day is the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.
Balvenie distillery is a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky distillery in Dufftown, Scotland, owned by William Grant & Sons.
Sir William Beatty was an Irish surgeon who served in the Royal Navy. Born in Derry, Ireland, he joined as a surgeon's mate in 1791 at the age of 18. He is best known as the ship's surgeon aboard HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, at which he witnessed the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson, and for writing an account of that battle – Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson.
Applejack is a strong alcoholic drink produced from apples. Popular in the American colonial era, the drink's prevalence declined in the 19th and 20th centuries amid competition from other spirits.
Travellers Liquors Limited is a distiller based in Belize. The company produces a variety of different liquors, specializing in aged 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. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, but today it is 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.
Captain George Miller Bligh (1780–1834) was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. He was present aboard HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and was badly wounded during the action. He was taken below and was present in the cockpit at the death of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson.
Beer is produced through steeping a sugar source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BC, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in Sumerian writings, some of the oldest known writing of any sort. Brewing is done in a brewery by a brewer, and the brewing industry is part of most western economies. In 19th century Britain, technological discoveries and improvements such as Burtonisation and the Burton Union system significantly changed beer brewing.
HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was ordered in 1758, laid down in 1759, and launched in 1765. With 246 years of service as of 2024, she is the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission.
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.
The Admiralty is a pub at 66 Trafalgar Square, London. It is the only pub situated on the square. The Italianate building was built in 1871 by the architect F. W. Porter for the Union Bank. It was listed at Grade II in 1987, by which time it was a branch of the National Westminster Bank.
A number of units of measurement were used in South Africa to measure quantities like length, mass, capacity, etc. The Imperial system of measurements was made standard in 1922 and the metric system was adopted in 1961.
A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port. There is a particular tradition of barrel ageing beer in Belgium, notably of lambic beers. The first bourbon barrel-aged beers were produced in the United States in the early 1990s.
Mary Buick was a Scottish nurse who was working aboard Vice-Admiral Nelson’s HMS Victory when he died in The Battle of Trafalgar. She tended to Nelson's body and prepared it for its journey home.
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, was given a state funeral in London on 9 January 1806. It was the first to be held at St Paul's Cathedral and was the grandest of any non-royal person to that date. Nelson was shot and killed on 21 October 1805, aged 47, aboard his flagship, HMS Victory, during the Battle of Trafalgar, part of the Napoleonic Wars. The successful outcome of the battle against a larger Franco-Spanish fleet, secured British naval supremacy and ended the threat of a French invasion of the United Kingdom. Nelson's previous victories meant that he was revered as a national hero and news of his death was met with near universal shock and mourning. The scale of his funeral was not only an expression of public sentiment, but also an attempt by the British Government to improve the perception of its prosecution of the war.