German Egg Grog: Eiergrog

The German North Sea coast is the ancestral homeland of the Germanic tribes that sailed to Briton 1500 years ago and founded England. To this day the English and the Germans of the area share more than their DNA and the common Germanic source of their languages,* as they also share a good deal of weather, as well as food and beverage similarities. Like their English cousins, these northern Germans like tea, although I'm sure this isn't some shared genetic trait, but rather more a fact of shared cool, damp weather conditions in many parts of both northern Germany and parts of England, as well as the fact that tea drinking has become quite a tradition among these North Sea cousins. The Germans in this area of the north use rock candy (called "Kluntje" in the region) to sweeten their tea. Another shared drink is grog, borrowed by the Germans from the English. The drink is served hot, and it is another tie to weather conditions, as it can take the chill out of a polar bear (German: Eisbär, literally, "ice bear," but they also use "Polarbär"). So the English and the northern Germans share tea and grog, both a type of "drink," which is "Drank" in both Low German and Frisian, and "Getränk" in standard German. This grog has egg yolk and is called "Eiergrog" (the first part is pronounced as if, "eye-ah") in German; that is, "Eggs Grog." **

Ingredients (4 servings):

3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
8 ounces rum (light or dark)
8 ounces hot water (you can adjust the amount of rum and water)

If you have a stainless steel bowl that will fit over a pan of hot water, that is ideal for this. Heat the water in the pan. Meanwhile, heat some more water to be added to the mixture. Mix the egg yolks and sugar and set the bowl over the hot water. Stirring constantly, gradually add the rum, then the hot water. Don't let the eggs curdle, and pull the bowl off of the hot water if need be to prevent curdling. Keep stirring (whisking is best) until you get some froth to the rum mixture. Serve the grog in glasses and stir again to keep the froth. If desired, dust each glass of grog with a bit of nutmeg or mace.  

* The Germans of the area often grow up bilingual, speaking Low German and standard German, and some even grow up multilingual, speaking Frisian, or even Danish.

** English long had "ei/ey/eai" (dialectal variances all pronounced essentially like "eye") as its word for "egg," with "egg" being a close relative of the former word, but brought to northern England long ago by the Danes, who spoke Old Norse, a Germanic cousin of English from the North Germanic branch of Germanic. "Egg" eventually won the battle, but not until the 16th Century. If my memory is right, some linguists have speculated that the "eye" pronunciation of the long time English word may have aided "egg" as a replacement, because of the same pronunciation for the "eye," the organ of sight.  

WORD HISTORY:
Grog-This word goes back to the nickname for Edward Vernon, an English admiral of the mid 1700s, who often commanded ships in the West Indies, famous for its rum. He was called "Old Grog" for his grogram coat. Grogram was a fabric of strong, but coarse material. The admiral gave orders that the rum for his men was to be watered down, thus providing the basis for the drink of rum with water added. The drink also often had lemon added as a preventive measure for scurvy on ships. I've read somewhere, but I cannot now recall where, that the admiral's "water down the rum" order was met by the talk of mutiny. George Washington's brother served under Vernon, and it is for this reason the Washington estate came to be called Mount Vernon (the admiral died well before the American Revolution). "Groggy" came from the idea of being under the influence of too much grog, although later the term broadened in meaning to any condition of not being clear in mind, regardless of alcohol intake.