Savvy Sailors.

[Buffalo]

Seafarers in the past used alcohol and salt to preserve all sorts of things, as lightweight air-tight packaging was difficult to achieve.
It's not at all unlikely that rum and other spirits were used to preserve bulk stores of tobacco, not that sailors used drops of their grog ration to rehydrate their own tobacco, which was also rationed and which they presumably wished to make last, and which was probably carried in nothing more than a cloth or leather pouch.

I could see sailors using the rum to flavor their ration of tobacco, not use it to rehydrate it.

 

[RookieGuy80]

I could see sailors using the rum to flavor their ration of tobacco, not use it to rehydrate it.

I couldn't see that. I can see them splashing some of their daily rations on it to keep it, as a preservative. Between the mold growing climates where British trading ships travel, various pests (bugs, rats, God knows what else), changing environments, and 6-18 months (or longer in the case of whaling fleets, where a 2 year voyage isn't out of the question), I imagine those sailors would be looking for any edge they can give themselves to stay in tobacco.

 

[jaingorenard]

I couldn't see that. I can see them splashing some of their daily rations on it to keep it, as a preservative. Between the mold growing climates where British trading ships travel, various pests (bugs, rats, God knows what else), changing environments, and 6-18 months (or longer in the case of whaling fleets, where a 2 year voyage isn't out of the question), I imagine those sailors would be looking for any edge they can give themselves to stay in tobacco.

I think mould was likely a far bigger problem. I think below decks sailing through the tropics they would have mould half a foot thick on the beams (although I can't remember where I read that).