Jan 262020
Rumaniacs Review #109 | 0696
It may be called a Navy rum but the label is quite clear that it’s a “Product of Guyana” so perhaps what they were doing is channelling the Pussers rums from forty years later, which also and similarly restricted themselves to one component of the navy rum recipe. The British maritime moniker has always been a rather plastic concept – as an example, I recall reading that they also sourced rums from Australia for their blend at one point – so perhaps, as long as it was sold and served to the Navy, it was allowed the title. Or maybe it’s just canny marketing of an un-trademarked title, which is meant to describe a style of rum as it was commonly understood back then.
It’s unclear when this particular rum was first introduced, as references are (unsurprisingly) scarce. It was certainly available during the 1970s, which is the earliest to which I’ve managed to date this specific bottle based on label inclusions. One gentleman commented on the FRP’s review “This was the Rum issued to all ships up until the demise of the Merchant Navy (British Merchant Marine) in 1987. We didn’t receive a tot of rum like the Royal Navy, instead we had our own-run bars (officers’ bar, crew bar). The label with the bells was changed sometime in the early/mid 80’s to a brown coloured label with a sailing ship.” Based on some auction listings I’ve seen, there are several different variations of the label, but I think it is safe to say that this red one dates back from the late 1970s, early 1980s at the latest.
An older label: note the HMS Challis under the bells, which I was unable to trace
A “half” of Four Bells, what Guyanese would call a “flattie”. Fits nicely into a hip pocket
Other Notes
- Taken literally, the “four bells” name is an interesting one. In British Navy tradition, the strikes of a ship’s bell were not aligned with the hour. Instead, there were eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch – four bells is therefore halfway through any one of the Middle, Morning, Forenoon, Afternoon, Dog or First watches (good that someone knew this, because eight bells would have been an unfortunate term to use for a rum, being used as it was to denote end of watch” or a funeral). All that said, the design of the four bells on the label could equally be representative of four founders, or be something more festive, so maybe this whole paragraph is an aside that indulges my love of historical background.
- Proof and ABV – In 1969 the UK government created the Metrication Board to promote and establish metrification in Britain, generally on a voluntary basis. In 1978 government policy shifted, and they made it mandatory in certain sectors. In 1980 that policy flip-flopped again to revert to a voluntary basis, and the Board was abolished, though by this date just about all rum labels had ABV and the proof system fell into disuse – and essentially, this allows dating of UK labels to be done within some broad ranges.
Four Bells was halfway through the watch when you went for smoko (tea break), and if you were on lookout up in the crows nest, you would certainly have a hot toddy to warm yer cockles! We weren’t called drunken sailors for nothing. And you couldn’t call yourself a seaman if you didn’t catch the clap in each of the seven seas. If you were taking the 12-4 watch, you would go to the galley for an early lunch telling them you are a 7 beller. So much culture that was built up through hundreds of years of seafaring only to be lost forever, happiest days of my life. Cane on Lawrence!
Just because it’s called Navy rum, there are people wittering on about Pussers rum. Four Bells was at one time the defacto official rum of the other navy. The Merchant Navy. Fine stuff.
Tengo una botella sellada, alguien sabe el valor que pueda tener?
(Trans: I have a sealed bottle, does anyone know the value it may have?)
Este sitio no valora botellas. Probablemente sea mejor que preguntes en uno de los grupos de Facebook.
(This site does not value bottles. You’d probably be better off asking on one of the Facebook groups.)