The Original Drinking Flag

While researching my gin journal, I became fascinated with a tradition of the British Navy based around a triangular piece of fabric known as a “Gin Pennant.” Usually made from a recycled signal flag, its creators would draw a drinking vessel on the pennant before hoisting it up the halyard as a kind of pre-Internet friend request. As the story goes, officers of one ship would raise it to invite officers of other nearby ships for cocktails (usually gin-based, because England) when in port.  Crew of the USS Gunnell, an American submarine, on Midway Island in early 1944. The crew is displaying a gin pennant reportedly gifted to them by a British PT boat crew. This particular pennant lacks the traditional green Martini glass in the center panel. Photographer unknown. A Time-Tested Design Today, you can use the Drinking Flag to let your crew know when cocktail hour has come with a faithful, conveniently compact reproduction of a classic and highly-hospitable design that will give you many