2958: Tapping the Admiral Jan 26, 2025

The phrase "tapping the admiral" comes from naval slang, referring to boring a hole in a barrel and sucking out the contents through a straw, supposedly stemming from a peculiar story surrounding the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson, one of Britain's most revered naval heroes. In 1805, after leading the Royal Navy to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson was fatally wounded by a sniper's shot. As the story goes, his sailors, hoping to later give him a state funeral, decided to preserve his body in fine spirits. They filled his casket with a barrel of rum (or possibly brandy), which also became known as "Nelson's blood," but found it dry by the time of returning to Britain.

Though the story itself may well be real, and very likely Nelson's death popularized the phrase, the term "tapping the admiral" had already been in use at least by the 18th century and possibly earlier. This is a common problem with phrase etymology, where people assume it must have a particular story tied to it, but it often just evolves in less interesting ways.