Hollywood, California · 1940s
Navy Grog
Naval regulation before it was ever a cocktail.
- Created by
- Donn Beach (Don the Beachcomber)
- Tastes like
- Dry, honeyed, citrus-forward — the grown-up rum drink
- Glass
- Double old-fashioned, with an ice cone
- Garnish
- The cone itself, and a straw down its middle
Ingredients
- 1 ozlight Puerto Rican rum
- 1 ozdark Jamaican rum
- 1 ozDemerara rum
- 3/4 ozfresh lime juice
- 3/4 ozfresh white grapefruit juice
- 1 ozhoney mix (3 parts honey to 1 part warm water)
- 1 ozsoda water
Method
- 1.Stir the honey mix into the lime and grapefruit until it fully dissolves — honey seizes in cold liquid if you skip this.
- 2.Add the three rums and shake with ice.
- 3.Strain over an ice cone in a double old-fashioned glass.
- 4.Top with the soda water and serve with a straw through the cone.
Grog is older than tiki by two centuries. In 1740 Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon — called "Old Grog" for the grogram cloak he wore on deck — ordered the Royal Navy's daily half-pint rum ration cut with water, and later with sugar and citrus. The dilution kept the crew upright; the citrus, unknowingly at first, kept them from scurvy.
Donn Beach took the name and built something considerably more serious than a ration: three rums, two juices, honey instead of sugar, and a soda lift. It is the driest drink on this list and the one most likely to convert a whiskey drinker.
The signature is the ice. Donn's bar froze water in a cone around a length of copper pipe, then slid the pipe out, leaving a channel for the straw. President Nixon drank these at the Beachcomber in Washington, reportedly several at a time.
Thatch note
You can make the cone at home: freeze water in a funnel with a chopstick standing in the middle. It is a ridiculous amount of effort and it is completely worth it once.