Brass Monkey is a song by the Beastie Boys as many of us know, but what exactly is “brass monkey?”
Booze:
1/2 oz Rum
1/2 oz Vodka
4 oz Orange juice
I drink Brass Monkey and I rock well
I got a Castle in Brooklyn; That’s where I dwell
Brass Monkey is short for the expression “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey”. Evan Morris gives one explanation in his Word Detective column here.
Personally, I think Morris gave a bogus answer for this one to avoid offending his editors (editors tend to have very delicate sensibilities; I’m surprised any of them have been able to put up with Cecil for so long). There’s a nautical explanation which I favor:
In the days of yore, cannon balls on naval ships were kept in racks, known as monkeys, to keep them from rolling around on the decks. On the better equipped ships, these racks were made of brass. When the weather got really cold, the racks would shrink at a different rate than the lead or cast iron cannon balls and eventually would not hold them. At this temperature, it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
OK, this explanation is of the “too cute to be true” variety. But it sure sounds better than Morris’s. Besides, did the Victorians actually put those See-no-evil figures outside where they could get cold?
Dan Tilque
I don’t know where the expression came from, but my dad often used the term “Useless as tits on a brass monkey”. It just has a ring to it…
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Brass Monkey was actually the brand name of a cheap fortified wine. Maybe you can still get it in places, the last I saw it was about 10 years ago in urban California (it came in hip-flask style bottles). I highly suspect this is the Brass Monkey the Beasties refer to.
Would that be a brass ring? 
I’ve read this explanation before and I don’t buy it. Brass is expensive and requires frequent polishing, especially at sea. Doesn’t it make more sense to make the cannon ball “monkey” out of wood? Wood is cheaper and easier to replace when you’re far from your home port. Also, I’ve never noticed “brass monkies” on documentaries such as Great Ships, or heard them mention them. (But I’ll admit that I haven’t made a point of looking for brass squares on decks.) I just find the cannon-ball theory a little far-fetched.
The Victorian story makes more sense to me, because brass monkies were popular knick-knacks back then. (I actually have a brass monkey, a reproduction of a dip-pen holder. [looking] Hmmm. Must be female…) I don’t think they kept them outside, but that doesn’t matter. It could still be cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey if you took it outside. (If it’s very cold, I usually say, “Better keep the brass monkey inside.”)
Wasn’t there a teevee show called Tales of the Brass Monkey?
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
I have the same reservations about why they would make racks for cannon balls out of brass and not wood. It seems ridiculous.
So I looked up monkey in the OED and it reminded me of the original(?) form of the nautical etymology. It seems that monkey was nautical slang name for a small cannon (this is certain, the OED has the definition). If it got cold enough, a cannon ball would shrink more than the brass cannon that it was wedged into and would then roll out. Or maybe it wouldn’t wedge properly.
This sounds a bit more plausible than the brass rack variant.
Dan Tilque
RTA wrote:
I had always understood that Brass Monkey was the name of a whiskey, which made more sense, since some whiskeys taste a lot like brass.
But I’m sure that James Brown’s Night Train referrs to a wine.
Try ["]http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-bra1.htm[this]](http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-bra1.htm[this) site
DOH!
Try again-link forbrass monkey and any other phrases for their origins
quinon doesn’t explain the origin of the phrase, but he confirmed my guesses about the cannon-ball thing. I’m still voting for the Victorian knick-knack hypothesis.
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
The only brass plate one the HMS Victorys deck(yes I did serve some time on there and I fired the guns!) was the one that said.
“Nelson fell here”
Not surprising really as it sticks up just ehough-nearly went arse over myself 