Capt. Rob wrote:
Now, those were Sailors! No wonder she is the oldest commissioned Ship
of the US NAVY. She was manned by drinking, fighting sailors. Not
Drunks
but HARD DRINKING SAILORS.


Yeah, a bunch of retards who lived to 50 and died painful sick deaths.
Great.



RB
35s5
NY


Man o man...the more you type the dumber you are on the subject.

Most rum in the early days was used to treat the water to prolong life
at the time. Sailors received rum rations for health reasons

Check out the history of Gin & Tonic with a twist of lime.

Gin and Tonics were -like Gin itself- originally developed as a
medicine. In this case to help fight malaria. When the British Sailors
and ships were in the East they became susceptible to malaria and
eventually found out that quinine (an ingredient in Tonic Water) was
useful for getting rid of the disease. Well, as you would probably
expect, drinking Tonic Water by itself is pretty nasty (unless you've
acquired a taste for it) and they had problems getting the British in
the East to drink it.

Along comes our friend Gin to be mixed with the Tonic Water, which not
only made drinking it much more pleasant, but also created an excellent
drink that would be remembered from then on, even if its relationship
to the disease was forgotten. So, as you can see, Gin and Tonic Water
came about due to medicinal reasons, then caught on later for thier
more pleasurable aspects.

On a minor note, the Lime (served in any GOOD Gin and Tonic) being a
citrus fruit (and therefore containing Vitamin C) helps to prevent
scurvy. Usually the limes are not the dominant ingredient of Gin and
Tonic, so they won't actually get rid of scurvy if you've already got
it - unless you drink A LOT of Gin and Tonics of course.

Captain Joe