Brass Monkey
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Brass Monkey: Cocktail
A brass monkey is a cocktail consisting of equal parts vodka, rum, and orange juice. It is thus essentially a screwdriver with rum added.
Pulp-free orange juice is usually desirable for reasons of palatability, though freshly squeezed juice may also yield a good brass monkey. Dark rum is also preferable, since it is the mixing of the brown rum with the orange juice that produces the distinct brass-like coloration for which this drink is named.
Much of this drink's notoriety comes from the Beastie Boys' 1986 record Licensed to Ill, which featured a track titled "Brass Monkey":
- "Monkey tastes Def when you pour it on ice
- Come on y'all it's time to get nice"
An alternative cocktail, often attributed to the Beastie Boys track, is essentially a variation on a mimosa. It consists of three parts malt liquor and one part Sunny Delight. Typically Olde English or St. Ides is used, and always in the forty-ounce bottle. The first quarter to third of the bottle is consumed, and then topped off with Sunny D, capped, inverted, and guzzled.
Brass Monkey: Weather
Brass monkey is also part of a saying from around the mid 19th century that has several forms:
- Cold enough to freeze the ears off a brass monkey
- Cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey
- Cold enough to freeze the nose off a brass monkey
- Cold enough to freeze the whiskers off a brass monkey
- Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
- Hot enough to scald the throat of a brass monkey
- Hot enough to singe the hair of a brass monkey
The origin of the saying is unknown but perhaps brass monkey refers to ornaments that were popular during the Victorian era.
More recently the saying is shortened to "It's brass monkey weather".
Urban Legend
Unfortunately this saying is also the victim of a widely circulated urban legend. This goes as follows:
In the heyday of the sailing ship, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but they had to find a way to prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon.
There was only one problem...how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate called a "monkey" with 16 round indentations. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls quickly would rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make "brass monkeys." Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
In reality cannon balls were stored on narrow wooden shot racks. There is no evidence that brass plates were used or that cannon balls were stacked on board a ship in pyramids. Given the movement of a ship at sea, pyramids of cannon balls would be unstable and highly dangerous to the crew.
External links
- Snopes.com page on the urban legend (http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.htm)
- World Wide Words (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bra1.htm)
- Department of the Navy (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htm)