Navy Grog (Don the Beachcomber)

Don the Beachcomber’s version of the Navy Grog was traditionally served with an ice cone in it. You can also serve it over crushed ice.

A flash blend means to blend the drink for 3 or 4 seconds in a stand-up mixer (also known as a flash blender).

If you don’t have a flash blender, you can try using an immersion (stick) blender as long as the ice you add to the tin is already crushed, otherwise you’ll ruin the blades.

The difference between using a flash blender instead of a regular blender is that the latter breaks apart the ice, which can lead to either an overly-diluted drink, or a thick drink (depending on the amount of ice you used).

An open pour with a gated finish is a straining technique to control the amount of ice that goes into the drink. We review this technique along with others in our Leveling Up Guide.

Grog was the name of a ration given to sailors back in the middle of the 1700s. This ration was mostly composed of water, with a small portion of rum added to it. The ratio was somewhere around 4:1 (water to rum), and the sailors could “purchase” sugar and lime to make the mixture more palatable. 

The name grog purportedly derives from one of the Admirals who pushed forward the use of it in the British Royal Navy: Edward Vernon, nicknamed “Old Grog”, because of his heavy grogram cloak made out of a mixture of silk, mohair and wool. 

This cocktail was created by Don the Beachcomber some time in the early 1940s. Because of the amount of rum in it, this cocktail would often have a 2 order limit. 

Navy Grog was famously one of Richard Nixon’s favorite drinks. Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974.