In the latter part of the 19th and the early 20th century, windjammer sailors in the nitrate and guano trades to Peru and Chile drank significant quantities of pisco when they arrived on the west coast of South America. Pisco is a brandy named after a southern Peruvian port. No doubt, most sailors drank it straight. These days the favored drink is the pisco sour, which is claimed as the national drink of both Peru and Chile. On a recent trip to Peru, I downed more than a few pisco sours and enjoyed each one. The drink is fundamentally a blend of pisco, sugar, lemon or lime juice and ice. The Peruvian version, developed in the 1920s, is a touch fancier, with a blended egg white for frothiness and a dash of Angostura bitters as an accent.

Since returning from Peru, I have come up with my own variation — pisco grog. The Peruvian pisco sour with blended egg white seems a bit too elaborate for a sailor’s drink. The Chilean version is just fine over ice, which is great in warm weather. It occurred to me that the primary ingredients of a pisco sour are not all that far from grog, the diluted run ration served in the Royal Navy. The recipe for grog was described in the ditty: One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak which is to say, one part lime juice, two parts sugar, three parts rum and four parts water.

The version of grog I have fixed on my own boats on cold days is a shot of dark rum, (Lambs or Pusser’s if available,) a half shot of lime or lemon, sugar to taste, and an around a half cup of hot water. Substituting pisco instead of a dark rum creates a “pisco grog.”  It has bit more of a tart tang as compared to the sweeter rum. In addition to being a nice change of pace, pisco grog is also an homage to the windjammer sailors that continued sailing square-riggers around Cape Horn until well into the 20th century. Arriba, abajo, adentro!