Evening grog — hot spirit for icy nights
A steaming glass of spirit added to hot water, brown sugar, and a squeeze of lemon. Simple, sharp, sweet-sour: it warms the hands as much as the throat.
A steaming glass of spirit added to hot water, brown sugar, and a squeeze of lemon. Simple, sharp, sweet-sour: it warms the hands as much as the throat.
When you come back chilled from a night spent reading the barometer and the stars, you don't refuse a nice hot grog. The sailors' rule, I give it to you: rum for strength, water for length, sugar for sweetness, and lemon for health. You drink it slowly, hands around the glass, and you finally feel the blood return to your fingertips.
- •Rum or brandy — a glass bottom (base, warmth)
- •Boiling water — to taste (dilution)
- •Brown or rock sugar — a lump (sweetness)
- •Lemon — a squeeze (acidity, anti-scurvy)
Evening grog — hot spirit for icy nights
A steaming glass of spirit added to hot water, brown sugar, and a squeeze of lemon. Simple, sharp, sweet-sour: it warms the hands as much as the throat.
Why this dish? Between two readings under the tent, or returning from nights of observation, a hot grog — rum or brandy, hot water, sugar, lemon — was the classic comfort of German sailors and explorers facing the cold. Wegener 'occasionally' drank alcohol; this hot glass was more a remedy against frost than a pleasure.
When you come back chilled from a night spent reading the barometer and the stars, you don't refuse a nice hot grog. The sailors' rule, I give it to you: rum for strength, water for length, sugar for sweetness, and lemon for health. You drink it slowly, hands around the glass, and you finally feel the blood return to your fingertips.
Ingredients (period version)
- Rum or brandy — a glass bottom (base, warmth)
- Boiling water — to taste (dilution)
- Brown or rock sugar — a lump (sweetness)
- Lemon — a squeeze (acidity, anti-scurvy)
Ingredients
- Dark rum — 4 cl (alcoholic base (omit for non-alcoholic version))
- Boiling water — 150 ml (hot dilution)
- Cane sugar or rock sugar — 1 to 2 tsp (sweetness)
- Fresh lemon juice — 1 tsp (acidity)
- Cinnamon stick (optional) — 1 (flavor)
Method
- Warm a thick glass or mug with some hot water, then empty it.
- Put the sugar at the bottom, add the rum and lemon juice.
- Pour in the boiling water, stir until the sugar dissolves.
- Optionally add a cinnamon stick and drink hot, in small sips.
- Family version: replace the rum with a spiced tea, keep lemon and sugar for a 'non-alcoholic grog.'
How it was made : The grog takes its name from an 18th-century British admiral, but the practice of cutting alcohol with hot sweetened lemon water had spread to all European navies and polar expeditions. Lemon, shipped to prevent scurvy, gave the remedy its tangy edge.
The contemporary twist : Served with a lemon slice studded with cloves and a brown rock sugar that melts slowly like an ice cap.
Alfred Wegener · Charactorium