BBB Etymology - Grog

In 1740, Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757) of the British Royal Navy issued an order that henceforth all sailors in the Royal Navy would be served a daily ration of rum mixed with water. While that might sound like the sort of order that would be popular with seamen, it was not, because up until that point they had been entitled to a daily ration of undiluted ("neat") rum.

Vernon had long been known to the rank and file as "Old Grog," a reference to the grogram cloak he always wore aboard ship. Seething over their watered-down rum rations, the men quickly transferred the Admiral's nickname to the feeble drink itself, and rum cut with water was thereafter known in the Navy as "grog."
Why "grog" now? Well, Harkins wondered about its derivation in The Dead End Kids Of Space, a story referenced in yesterday's BBB Pulp Pick.