Not to drive the sailorly thing into the ground, but check out this 1951 Ballantine Ale Ad. The tired, hardworking guy in the white shirt is relaxing having a Ballantine Ale, while sitting on a Ballantine'd line. That's the stack of rope he's using as a stool. Notice he's on a dock and nowhere near a halyard, but that's what they look like from the side, while they look just like the logo from the top.

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I love this logo too -- and I don't want to denigrate the more cultural/religious possibilities for the origin of the logo, but I'll throw in one more.
On traditionally rigged sailing vessel, a 'balantine' is a means of stacking the line from a halyard so that it will run free without tangling in case you need to strike sail quickly with little notice.
To translate a bit from boat speak -- When old-school sailing ships are carrying cargo or troops or whatever, clearly there is a balance between safety and speed that any ship captain wants to maintain. To go faster, you set more sail, usually setting large sails higher up the mast. The downside here is that if the weather changes, or the wind picks up, a quick squall can capsize a vessel in a hurry if the crew doesn't get the extra sails down quickly. The danger then is to get the lines that pull up the sail (the 'halyards') to run smoothly out so that you can get the sail down -- if the line tangles, that sail stays up and your whole ship might just find itself in a James Cameron flick in a few centuries.
In comes the balantine. Once the sail is up, you have all this extra halyard line on deck, and to get it ready to run, you start at the end of the line, and start 'stacking' it on deck, essentially drawing a one big circle and then three smaller interlocking circles that all fit inside the big one. You 'draw' one small circle, then the next, then the next, then back over the first. By the time you've stacked all the line up to where you'll release it to drop the sail again, you've got a carefully organized pile of line that will resist falling over or getting tangled in many hours of rocking back and forth, but in the instant you need it will run clean and free.
To me and many other sailorly types, the shape of the balantine is not only beautiful but is also beautifully functional. It reminds me of careful balance in the face of danger, and the simple, thoughtful tricks that can take you from creeping along paralyzed with fear, to hugging the edge of risk, confident in your ability to manage it. The beer's okay too.