The British and the French haven’t seen eye to eye for a long time. Since the Battle of Hastings, actually. (That was in 1066.)

In 1805, a sea battle was fought off the coast of Spain between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navy, during the Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815). It’s known as the Battle of Trafalgar. The British won the battle.

The Royal Navy was led by Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was kind of a rock star in Britain at the time.

Admiral Nelson By Leonardo Guzzardi (1799)

Nelson was mortally wounded during the battle. Because the British wanted to give him a state funeral, they decided the best way to preserve his body for the long journey back to England was by submerging it in a barrel of brandy.

It worked pretty well. His body was transported back to England, and today is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Statues of Nelson are all over the place in England—such as this modest little tribute in Trafalgar Square.

Pigeons will appreciate that the statue depicts Nelson missing his right arm (he lost an arm and an eye in a previous sea battle). photo by David Castor

All this is fairly well-known. But there’s been a story circulating for a long time that because their brandy rations were abruptly halted, sailors aboard the Victory siphoned off the brandy from the barrel in which their dead admiral was submerged and—blech—drank it. According to the myth-debunking website snopes.com, this story is unsubstantiated–although if you read it carefully, they don’t actually come out and say it isn’t true.

The British Navy began using the term “tapping the Admiral” to describe someone taking a drink on the sly.