
There are a few stories about how this cocktail came about, but there is one that seems the most likely. A member of the spirits-making Gosling family was sailing from England to Virginia in 1806, but due to a lack of wind, he ended up docking his ship in Bermuda instead. There, he continued his family’s tradition and developed Goslings rum. Several years later, British naval officers created ginger beer as a way to ease seasickness and mixed the beverage with Goslings rum.
A sailor allegedly commented that the drink looked like “the color of a cloud only a fool or a dead man would sail under,” and the name “dark ‘n stormy” was born, according to multiple accounts.