In my mind, grog will always be part of my Paris trip memories. My daughter wrote:
“It was a cold January day in Paris. That’s an understatement. We pulled out fur hats and wool scarves close to our faces as our feet turned to lifeless chunks of ice hitting the cobblestones. The Notre Dame was no match to the crepe restaurant five minutes from its doors, where the delightfully French waiter poured Grand Marnier over our thickly buttered thin-yet-life-giving delicate masterpieces of wheat made into lace. Then he set it on fire. At that moment, we felt all the cold bitterness fade away. We gladly accepted the communion wafer of genuine Paris beauty — warmth, passion, and life, fueled by alcohol, stopped by no one, and no single-digit temperature. Warm hearts — that is all that we remembered feeling on that glorious cold day."
From the Field Guide to Cocktails: How to Identify and Prepare Virtually Every Mixed Drink at the Bar:
“In its earliest incarnation, grog was merely a mixture of hot rum and water with an occasional sprinkling of spices. The 18th-century British admiral Edward Vernon, nicknamed Old Grog for the grogram fabric cloak he wore, attempted to prevent scurvy among his men by serving them a pint of rum a day. The dark navy rum had nothing to do with scurvy, but it did have a way of knocking the sailors on their duffle bags. Vernon then issued the infamous Captain’s Order Number 349, stating that all rum should be mixed with water, a dash of brown sugar, and lime to make it more palatable. In their displeasure, the sailors christened the weakened beverage after the admiral.
Grog has undergone many refinements over the years and is now served comfortingly warm or refreshingly cool. The original rum used in grog did not become available to the public until the 1980s. That it made its way to the liquor store shelves was more than coincidental or generous on the part of the manufacturer—the British navy phased out the daily ration of rum in the late 1970s."
