First Cocktail 5,000 Years Old

Praxiteles writes "The first cocktail was...grog?! From the article: 'The first cocktail ever was made in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago, using wine, beer, apple juice and honey. Patrick McGovern defined the mix as "grog", an archaic drink that in the United States is sold as the Midas Touch'."

Comments

Arrrr!

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone know that grog be rum and water.

Re:Arrrr!

[TapeCutter]

In Australia everyone knows it's Beer or sometimes alcohol in general (as in "we need more grog").

Re:Arrrr!

[StarvingSE]

And everyone be drinkin' some grog on International Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 19th!!!!!!!!

Wrong! Grog is made with rum

[bubbaD]

Grog is an alcoholic beverage made with water and rum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog

Re:Wrong! Grog is made with rum

[mattjb0010]

Can't speak of Australia, but in Sweden it's "Grogg", with two g's. It obviously comes from "Grog", but has changed spelling along with meaning, making it a different word.

Here in Australia it's just grog, mate. Anyone know the etymology? I would have thought the British/US English version derived from the "Grogg" and changed meaning, not the other way around. Then presumably in Australia, since rum was pretty much synonomous with alcohol (in fact at one point it was used as currency) it changed back again.

Midas Touch

[pancake_lover]

Midas Touch is made by Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware. It's an interesting drink, hard to catagorize.

More info can be found on their web site:

http://www.dogfish.com/beer/midastouch.cfm

Wrong moderation! It's a ref to Monkey Island

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a reference to the list of how to make grog in the video game Monkey Island. While you don't have to mod it down mods cause it is funny I thought I'd point it out cause some of you are quick to mod things up without checking the validity.

Re:Grog contains one or more of the following:

[imsabbel]

Not to mention it eats through the mug in less than 30 seconds, so you need spare mugs to reach the prison :)

Grog Bowl

[UnifiedTechs]

Every slashdot reader who has ever been to a military Dining-in is having flashbacks of the grog bowl right now.

http://www.ftmeademwr.com/activities/clubmead/hist ory.htm#grog

Re:ancient beer/wine != modern beer/wine!

[suprchunk]

You might not be making them right if you feel the need for filtration is just. I have been brewing for quite awhile now and have rarely had cloudy brew, or for that matter "bits" floating around in it. You might want to brush up on your brewing habits. http://www.howtobrew.com/

Re:ancient beer/wine != modern beer/wine!

[lawpoop]

Throughout various places in the Andes, indigenous people make a sort of 'drink' called chicha. It's made either of corn if you're in the mountains, or cassava root (aka manoic or plantain) if you're in the jungle area. Traditionally it fermentation was started by women chewing the plant material and spitting it into a big tub. Nowadays they use other methods. It is said that the Incan empire was literally built on chicha rations.

I was in a field school for a couple summers in Ecuador. The second summer, we stayed with and indigenous family in the jungle. They made manioc chicha, but pounded the roots with thick sticks, and started fermentation with a sweet potato. When ready, it has various textures, from liquid at the top, to thick at the bottom with manoic bits. The taste is stlighty sour, bitter, and pasty. Absolutely disgusting, in both taste and texture. At times I felt like I was drinking baby spit-up (it is whitish). It was all I could do to choke down the last bits at the bottom. I didn't want to seem like a weenie in the jungle.

However, there is a slight alcohol content, and while I didn't notice it, it is enough to start you up if you lack the gene that lets you metabolize alcohol like Native Americans do.

That's not a cocktail...

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

A cocktail is a mixture or a liquor and a liquer, with possibly other additions. For example, gin or vodka and dry vermouth is a martini. Tequila and triple sec with lime juice is a margarita. Since distilled alcoholic beverages are not know before the eight or ninth centuries, whatever this was, it wasn't a cocktail. doesn't mean it couldn't knock you on your ass, however.

Very true

[jd]

Egg yolk was adopted to filter beer/wine in medieval times, but I couldn't give you any idea as to when. I do know I've seen recipes from the 1600s mentioning the method. More recent finings were based around seaweed, not sure what the current method of making finings is.

Personally, I never use finings for filtration. If I leave the demijon with airlock sitting for a week, it is usually pretty settled. Not totally - a friend of mine took a batch of my mead to the LRP Summerfest one year, and it was pretty cloudy. Apparently it was still pretty good, though.

Re:"Grog" is now sold by it's commercial name:

[Anne Thwacks]

Grog means Rum. This is beacuse Admiral Grog, of the (British) Royal Navy ordered that all British sailors be given a tot of rum every day at mid day.

Re:Lime not just for flavor, same with water.

[pthisis]

How do you figure limes a modern addition. Ships carried limes, hence the nickname for british sailors, limeys.

That doesn't mean it was in part of the grog, though. You can add lime to grog, and that's been done some, most commonly in modern times.

Traditional grog is just rum and water, though apparently lime was suggested as an addition earlier on than I thought:

As wikipedia says,
"Grog is an alcoholic beverage made with water and rum. It was introduced into the Royal Navy by British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon on 21 August 1740. Modern versions of the drink sometimes include lemon juice, lime juice, cinnamon or sugar to improve the taste....Until the grog ration was discontinued in 1970, Navy rum was 95.5 proof, or 54.6 per cent alcohol; the usual ration was an eighth of a pint, diluted 2:1 with water (3:1 until World War II).

But the Contemplator's History of Grog says:

"By Vernon's time straight rum was commonly issued to sailors aboard ship - and drunkenness and lack of discipline were common problems. On August 21, 1740, Vernon issued an order that rum would thereafter be mixed with water. A quart of water was mixed with a half-pint of rum on deck and in the presence of the Lieutenant of the Watch. Sailors were given two servings a day; one between 10 and 12 AM and the other between 4 and 6 PM. To make it more palatable it was suggested sugar and lime be added. In 1756 the mixture of water and rum became part of the regulations, and the call to "Up Spirits" sounded aboard Royal Navy ships for more than two centuries thereafter..."