Norddeutscher Grog

Grog belongs to the German coast, especially the North Sea and Frisian table, where wind and wet weather teach a drink to keep its promises. It is winter work: after a cold walk, at the Silvester table, beside the Christmas biscuits when Glühwein would be too sweet and too loud. A good Grog is not a spice cupboard in a mug. It is rum, hot water, and sugar, clear enough to see what you've done.

Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. In Nordfriesland and Ostfriesland the argument is strict: rum must be there, sugar may be there, water is treated with suspicion. Inland, people start adding tea, lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, and soon they have made Punsch and called it Grog. Das ist kein Bierzelt, and it isn't a Christmas-market Fertigmischung either.

The technique is the order. Warm the glass, dissolve the sugar in hot water, then add the rum. Pour boiling water onto the rum and the best smell leaves before the drink reaches the table; add sugar after the rum and you grind crystals around the bottom while the drink cools. Erst verstehen, dann kochen. Or in this case, mix.

Use a dark rum with enough backbone, not a thin sweet bottle pretending to do the work. The drink should be amber, sharp at the nose, sweet only where you decide it. Schön ist, was schmeckt.