desperatly looking for original navygrog mix recipe

hi there i am searching for the "original" trader vic/don the beachcomber navygrog mix
recipe. ive been searching hopelessly for months. If someone has a normal navrygrog mix im still interested. by the way i have over 100 trader vics original recipes if anyone is interested thanx.

Trader Dan,

You'll need to give us a little more info than that. You've already got a thread going offering Trader Vic's recipes. Are you making them available in digital form out of the goodness of your heart? For trade? For sale? If so, what are are you expecting in return and why haven't you posted them in the 'Collecting Tiki' forum?

If we gave you the Navy Grog recipe, what will you do with it? Make it number 101 in your list of Trader Vic's recipes?

Trader Woody

Ok, Dan, I'm going to put you out of your misery:

Trader Vic's Navy Grog - (from Trader Vic's Helluva Man's Cookbook)
3 Ounces Trader Vic Navy Grog mix (uh-oh....)
1 ounce light Puerto Rican rum
1 ounce dark Jamaica Rum
1 ounce 86-proof Demerara rum
Lime shell, rock candy stick and fresh mint

Pour first four ingredients into mai tai (double old-fashioned) glass filled with shaved ice. Hand-shake. Decorate with a lime shell, rock candy stick, and fresh mint.

I'm not too sure what was in Vic's Navy Grog mix, but I'd guess that lime juice, grapefruit juice and honey all played their part.

Trader Woody

Good job Woody!
I'm guessing Dan could use a few of those right now.

Why don't ya just buy some?

http://www.tradervicsfoodproducts.com/default.asp

I don't mean to sound stupid, I have only begun to experiment with tropical drinks(I usually am a beer drinker) but what is demerara rum?

Demerara rum is made in Guyana and is a very dark, sweet rum. Great stuff

[ Edited by: kon-hemsby on 2004-04-29 10:07 ]

Thanks Kon, much appreciated. Is this form of rum avalible in most liquor stores? I know you are in England, but I am in the Ft Lauderdale/Miami area in florida.

From what I know it's pretty easy to get hold of but I think the stateside TC-ers would be better placed to tell you outlets for it.

Cheers

hey rr, i googled rum and got this info

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic-new.php?topic=1168&forum=1&vpost=88896

it might help, who knows. mahaloz!

trader dan!
You had a pretty rough start here.
Hope your still with us and nobody here is mad (I'm talking anger wise, mentally?....)
Anyway stick around here, and you'll be a mixoligist in no time.

Hello, I am new to posting here but have been lurking for a while and posting alittle of the Maryland DC Tiki Forum.
I too searched for the Trader Vic's Navy Grog recipie. The drink does not appear at all in his earlier books. When it does appear in later editions, the recipie uses the mix as posted earlier. I suspect that it was one of the earlier mixes (versus syrups such as grenadine or Orgeat) in their prouct line due to more advanced prep time needed to make it for use behind the bar (hint: it is cooked).
David Chan, owner of the recently closed Honululu in Alexandria Va, makes a mean Navy Grog that is markedly different from the Trader Vic version. Now, remember, Mr Chan was a bartender at the DC Trader Vics before opening his own place. Richard Nixon was a fan of the DC TV Navy Grog, so maybe Mr Chans is a cut above. He made his own Navy Grog mix for use at his bar. He mentioned to me that he might make that mix available (along with the MaiTai mix) on their website. However, I heard from another regular that he said the MT mix would be the only one he kept for himself. Anyway, the last week they were open, I asked him to taste my homemade Navy Grog mix that I had been making based upon tasting his mixed drinks, and he allowed me to taste his NG mix stright (i.e. not diluted into a drink). His was very dark (like the MaiTai mix) and much more complex in flavor than the bottled Trader Vic stuff. He procliamed mine very good and asked for my recipie which he said was very close and told me where I was off from his. I will share as soon as I determine if he is actually going to sell his commercially. Our discussion then ventured into Trader Vic's commercial mixes. Mr. Chan made some very interesting comments regarding them. He said that the drink recipies and the mixes had changed over the years. Now we know that the mixes and syrups were originated for and are still used in the restaurants (except in the case of the MaiTai if you ask for a San Francisco style).
This leads to some question as to what really is the recipie to their drinks? It would not surprise me if the old Trader changed the recipies for publication to make the in house drinks a little better than you could make at home and to delete hard to find ingredients while promoting his own line of mixes etc. Now back to David Chan. He took over the Honululu back in 1978. Prior to that, he had another place in Canada and before that worked at the DC Trader Vic's. That location opened in 1961. It stands to reason that there were original employees there when Mr. Chan worked there in the early 70's. It is entirely possible that what we were tasting was Mr Chan's version (changed a little and made his own perhaps) of 1961 vintage drinks.
Just look at the variations and use of esoteric ingedients (Van Der Hum, Parfait de Amour etc) in some of the other drink books including Don the Beachcomber and Grog Log compared to the relative simplicity of the published versions of T.V. drinks for further support to my theory that T.V. drinks may not be what they once were.
To close, the Navy Grog recipie from the Honululu use a homemade mix plus light and amber rums (cheap stuff: Ronrico), sour lemon (bar supply house bottled reconstituted unsweetened lemon juice), quarted of a lime squeezed in and shell left in and pink grapefruit juice. In other words, it is basically a MaiTai with the addition of grapefruit juice and the substitution of a different flavored sugar syrup.

Interesting post. This is a bit off topic, but I can confirm that (at least in Emeryville) Mai Tai's are indeed made with a mix, but it is different from the commercial mix that they sell to retail outlets. They make it up for their own use in house and refer to it (I believe)as Mai Tai Concentrate. You'll note it's much darker than the bottled stuff, presumably from the addition of a decent dark curacao.

Donde estas Trader Dan?

Martiki--interesting point about the Mai Tai concentrate vs. mix at Vic's. My friends and I have always noticed that the Vic's Mai Tais taste a lot better than the ones you can make with the store-bought mix. Then, last time we were at the Chicago Trader Vic's we sat at the bar and notice the same thing--that they were using stuff from a bottle labeled Mai Tai Concentrate. It had a label similar to the Mai Tai Mix bottle, but the stuff looked a little darker and the drinks they use it in (Mai Tai, Sufferin' Bastard, Menehune Juice) were really, really good.

Ragin'--you live around Ft. Lauderdale, so I assume you've been to the Mai Kai. I think all their drinks are outstanding, but if you haven't tried it I really recommend the Yeoman's Grog, which is a very close relative of the original Don the Beachcomber Navy Grog. It's quite similar to the recipe in the Grog Log, which I think is the best one that has been published--especially if you serve it with the Navy Grog Ice Cone (pack shaved ice in a pilsener to make a little cone of ice that you refreeze and poke a straw into.)

Another good Navy Grog recipe is in Phoebe Beach's book. It is close to the Grog Log recipe except it uses Navy Rum instead of Demerera and a little guava juice.

Well, all this talk about Navy Grogs is givin' me a hankerin' for one. I'm off! Fortunately I've got some ice cones in the freezer ready to go!

On 2004-04-30 20:26, Quince_at_Dannys wrote:
My friends and I have always noticed that the Vic's Mai Tais taste a lot better than the ones you can make with the store-bought mix.

They probably know (God forbid), that this would be on less reason to go to Trader Vics.