Grog

• Egg 'n' Grog was the ancestor of modern eggnog.Spike Mafford/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  Grog, or rum diluted with water, was invented by the British Navy when giving out rum rations to the sailors; cutting the rum with water made it go further. The colonial American Navy adopted this practice and grog became a popular drink in America by the late-18th century. Adding an egg and sugar to your grog made it into a drink called "egg 'n' grog," the ancestor of modern eggnog. Grogshops were a common feature of port cities in the colonies even before the Revolutionary War. The mimbo was a drink similar to grog, containing rum, water and sugar.
  
  

Rum Punches

• Rum was often served in the form of punch in early America.Eising/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  If you were in a tavern in early-18th century colonial America, rum punch was one of the few mixed drinks on the menu. It was invented in the late-17th century by the British, and consisted of five main ingredients: rum, sugar, lemons, spices and water. American rum punch might also contain additional ingredients such as milk, fruit juice or other liquors.
  
  

Rum and Juice

• Rum mixed with apple cider was called a sampson.Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
  
  Rum mixed with fruit juices or syrups was a popular combination in early America. Cherry bounce, or rum mixed with cherry juice, was popular into the Victorian period. Mixing rum with bilberry juice made a colonial drink called a bilberry dram. A favorite warm drink at early American funerals was rum combined with the juice of juniper berries. If you preferred apple cider with your rum, you might have a sampson. Rum shrub was a drink in which the main ingredients were rum and a fruit shrub, which was a syrup made with vinegar.
  
  

Rum Flip

• Rum flips were made with sweetened rum and beer.Hemera Technologies/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  One of the best known early American rum drinks was the rum flip, which became popular in the late-17th century, around the same time rum punch was first served in the colonies. A rum flip was made with strong beer and rum, sweetened with loaf sugar or molasses and stirred with a loggerhead, a long piece of iron that had been heated in the fire. The hot stirrer not only warmed the drink, but caused it to bubble up in the mug. Rum flips were sometimes made with cider instead of beer, or with an egg added.
  
  Other drinks that combined rum and beer were also popular. A manatham, for example, was rum mixed with small beer; spruce beer with rum was called a calibogus. Calibogus was often made, like rum flips and grog, with egg and sugar added. [Reference 3]