Punch (19 page)
Authors: David Wondrich
YIELD: 16 cups.
As has been noted, arrack was expensive in Britain, whereas French brandy was cheap, or at least cheaper, particularly when it was smuggled in to avoid the excise. Major Thomas Bird, anyway, was no smuggler, nor was his brandy, advertised in 1707 at eight and a half shillings a gallon, all that cheap. But he had been established in the business since 1689, if not before, and was a pillar of the community—that “Major” came from his position as second in command of one of the six regiments of the London Militia—and we can be pretty sure the “Old Coigniac [
sic
] Brandy” he stocked at his Pudding Lane warehouse was at least genuine, a qualification that was far from universal. Perhaps I’m only willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because the recipe for Brandy Punch that accompanied some of his advertisements is such a sound one. One could ask for no better proof that by Bird’s day, mixologists had established that just as rum has its mate for life in the lime, brandy rejoices in the lemon.
THE ORIGINAL FORMULAsic
] Brandy” he stocked at his Pudding Lane warehouse was at least genuine, a qualification that was far from universal. Perhaps I’m only willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because the recipe for Brandy Punch that accompanied some of his advertisements is such a sound one. One could ask for no better proof that by Bird’s day, mixologists had established that just as rum has its mate for life in the lime, brandy rejoices in the lemon.
Major Bird’s Receipt to make Punch of his Brandy.
Take 1 Quart of his Brandy, and it will bear 2 Quarts and a Pint of Spring Water; if you drink it very strong, then 2 Quarts of Water to a Quart of the Brandy, with 6 or 8 Lisbon Lemmons, and half a Pound of fine Loaf Sugar: Then you will find it to have a curious fine scent and flavour, and Drink and Taste as clean as Burgundy Wine.
SOURCE: Quoted in John Ashton,
Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, Taken from Original Sources
, 1882
SUGGESTED PROCEDURESocial Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, Taken from Original Sources
, 1882
Begin with an oleo-saccharum of four lemons and 1 cup fine-grained raw sugar, such as Florida Crystals. Add 8 ounces lemon juice and stir until sugar has dissolved. Add 1 quart VS-grade cognac and 2 quarts cool water. Grate nutmeg on top.
NOTES
I’ve suggested the oleo-saccharum here to reflect the increasing sophistication of Punch-making in the eighteenth century. Unless your cognac is “full Proof” like Bird’s (whatever that meant in 1707), even the lesser quantity of water will not make this “very strong.” If you’re adding ice, in fact, you might want to use even less. If you should find yourself short a cup or so of the brandy and had just that amount of Smith & Cross Jamaican rum or other hogo-bomb loitering around with nothing to do, matters might be arranged to the benefit of all concerned.
YIELD: 13 cups.
If you happened to be in Edinburgh one Saturday night in the 1770s and wished to go where the Quality went, you would in short order find yourself diving below the sidewalk into a dimly lit, smoky cellar packed with parties of the fanciest men and women in town, all eating oysters, drinking porter (there was no wine) and, when the spirit moved them, dancing reels. Once the repast was cleared, it was time for Punch. Brandy or rum—ladies’ choice. Edward Topham, who dived in 1775, noted that “the ladies, who always love what is best, fixed upon brandy punch.” But then again, they were Edinburgh ladies; had they been Glasgow lasses, the answer would have been different.
Glasgow, you see, was wholly and famously dedicated to Rum Punch. It being in Scotland, one might expect something different. But to this day, if the first thing you do when you walk into a drinking establishment is make a quick inventory of the available potables, you’ll very quickly notice something odd going on in many a Scottish pub, particularly if it’s within caber-toss of salt water. Half of the speed-pourers will be full of not malt whiskey, or even blended whiskey, but obscure, inky stuff that travels under the names “Old Trawler” and “O.V.D.” Rum. Dark, heady demerara rum, at that—the kind that’s all about the “hogo” (O.V.D. = “Old Vatted Demerara”). Go figure.
It’s not all that strange when you really think about it, though. As a glance at the map of Scotland reveals, there’s an awful lot of coastline there, and the Scots have always been seafarers as a result. And seafarers—sailors—drink rum. Small wonder, then, that the native Punch of Glasgow, a major hub for transatlantic trade in the eighteenth century and shipbuilding in the nineteenth, was based on rum.
Uncharacteristically for Hibernian Punches, Glasgow Punch is generally made cold, at least by, as Sir John Sinclair wrote in 1807, those “who value themselves on the superior flavour of their rum and fruit.” Perhaps this is because Glasgow’s maritime climate is warmer than that of the rest of the country or because shipbuilding is hot work. Or perhaps it simply has to do with the observation made in another of ODoherty’s Maxims that would be plagiarized by Jerry Thomas (or, to be fair, his editors) that “the beautiful mutual adaptation of cold rum and cold water . . . is beyond all praise . . . being one of nature’s most exquisite achievements.” I might not go that far—but then again, ply me with Glasgow Punch and I very well might.
The following recipe comes from a note appended by the busy nineteenth-century editor R. Shelton Mackenzie to his edition of the
Noctes Ambrosianae
, a widely popular series of convivial and philosophical dialogues that shared the pages of
Blackwood’s
with the “Maxims of ODoherty.”
ar
Mackenzie purloined it in turn from another of the
Blackwood
’
s
wits, John Gibson Lockhart (Sir Walter Scott’s son-in-law and a friend of Goethe’s—another Punch-drinker, by the way), who included a scene of people making it in his 1819 satirical novel,
Peter’s Letters to His Kinsfolk
. Peter, it must be admitted, did not have such a wonderful experience with it. “Nature,” he writes his friend the morning after, “must have given bowels of brass to the Glasgow punch-drinker. On no other principle can the enormous quantities of punch, which the natives here swallow with impunity, be accounted for.” The joke here is, as Sinclair observed and Lockhart’s own description of the Punch’s making bears out, that
Noctes Ambrosianae
, a widely popular series of convivial and philosophical dialogues that shared the pages of
Blackwood’s
with the “Maxims of ODoherty.”
ar
Mackenzie purloined it in turn from another of the
Blackwood
’
s
wits, John Gibson Lockhart (Sir Walter Scott’s son-in-law and a friend of Goethe’s—another Punch-drinker, by the way), who included a scene of people making it in his 1819 satirical novel,
Peter’s Letters to His Kinsfolk
. Peter, it must be admitted, did not have such a wonderful experience with it. “Nature,” he writes his friend the morning after, “must have given bowels of brass to the Glasgow punch-drinker. On no other principle can the enormous quantities of punch, which the natives here swallow with impunity, be accounted for.” The joke here is, as Sinclair observed and Lockhart’s own description of the Punch’s making bears out, that
the punch that was the ordinary drink of the people of Glasgow . . . was in general made weak. . . . This kind of liquor might be drank in large quantities with safety; it passed freely off by the kidneys and skin; and seldom occasioned a head-ache.
Peter, in short, was a pussy. Headache or no, he was lucky to get any Glasgow Punch at all: by the early nineteenth century, it was on its way out as a day-to-day drink, and as Sinclair noted, if it was drunk, “instead of one overflowing social bowl, in the preparing of which more attention was paid to the cookery, every guest now makes his own punch in a separate glass or tumbler.”
Glasgow Punch is cold. To make a quart jug of it, melt the sugar in a little water. Squeeze a couple of lemons through a hair-strainer, and mix. This is Sherbet, and half the battle consists in it being well-made. Then add old Jamaica rum, in the portion of one to six. Finally, cut two limes in two, and run each section rapidly round the edge of the jug, gently squeezing in some of the more delicate acid to complete the flavor. This mixture is very insinuating, and leaves those who freely take it, the legacy of splitting headaches, into the day-use of which they can enter the next morning.
SOURCE: R. Shelton Mackenzie, ed.,
Noctes Ambrosianae
, 1854
SUGGESTED PROCEDURENoctes Ambrosianae
, 1854
In a one-and-a-half-quart jug or bowl, dissolve 6 ounces fine-grained raw sugar, such as Florida Crystals, in 6 ounces water. Add 4 ounces strained lemon juice and 20 ounces cold water. Stir in 6 or 7 ounces strong Jamaican-style rum (“Great care was taken to use none but the best old Jamaica rum”—Sinclair), cut two well-ripened limes in half, run the cut sides around the rim of the jug or bowl and hand-squeeze the juice in. Serve.
NOTES
Don’t worry too much about the headaches, not unless you drink at least a jug of this yourself. In fact (if you don’t mind getting past the “portion of one to six”), this will taste a lot better, while still remaining light and quaffable, if you use 10 ounces of rum and a pint (American) of cold water, making a portion of one to three. However much rum you use, don’t forget the limes; they are, as Lockhart wrote, the “
tour de maitre
” here—the master’s touch.
tour de maitre
” here—the master’s touch.
YIELD: 5 cups (1 imperial quart).
Charles Dickens needs no introduction. A dedicated Punchmaker, he was known among his friends for his ritualized performance as he worked up a bowl or jug, complete with running commentary on his ingredients, techniques and progress. His characters were, if anything, more dedicated to the flowing bowl than their creator. If, however, I were to invite Pickwick and Micawber and Sam Weller and all of Dickens’s other Punch-drinkers in to sit for a spell, I would soon find myself entirely without space to write about anything else. Instead, I shall send the more mixologically minded among you to Edward Hewett and W. F. Axton’s
Convivial Dickens
, if you can find it, and everyone else to
The Pickwick Papers
, one of the most pleasantly tipsy books ever written. And here, to moisten your journey through the book, is Dickens’s own recipe for Punch, or at least the one he sent to his friend Henry Austin’s sister, with the hope that it would make her “for ninety years . . . a beautiful Punchmaker in more senses than one.” With this sophisticated brandy-rum formula (ever the sign of the epicure), she could not have failed.
THE ORIGINAL FORMULAConvivial Dickens
, if you can find it, and everyone else to
The Pickwick Papers
, one of the most pleasantly tipsy books ever written. And here, to moisten your journey through the book, is Dickens’s own recipe for Punch, or at least the one he sent to his friend Henry Austin’s sister, with the hope that it would make her “for ninety years . . . a beautiful Punchmaker in more senses than one.” With this sophisticated brandy-rum formula (ever the sign of the epicure), she could not have failed.
TO MAKE THREE PINTS OF PUNCH
Peel into a very strong common basin (which may be broken, in case of accident, without damage to the owner’s peace or pocket) the rinds of three lemons, cut very thin, and with as little as possible of the white coating between the peel and the fruit, attached. Add a double-handfull [
sic
] of lump sugar (good measure), a pint of good old rum, and a large wine-glass full of brandy—if it not be a large claret-glass, say two. Set this on fire, by filling a warm silver spoon with the spirit, lighting the contents at a wax taper, and pouring them gently in. [L]et it burn for three or four minutes at least, stirring it from time to time. Then extinguish it by covering the basin with a tray, which will immediately put out the flame. Then squeeze in the juice of the three lemons, and add a quart of
boiling
water. Stir the whole well, cover it up for five minutes, and stir again.
sic
] of lump sugar (good measure), a pint of good old rum, and a large wine-glass full of brandy—if it not be a large claret-glass, say two. Set this on fire, by filling a warm silver spoon with the spirit, lighting the contents at a wax taper, and pouring them gently in. [L]et it burn for three or four minutes at least, stirring it from time to time. Then extinguish it by covering the basin with a tray, which will immediately put out the flame. Then squeeze in the juice of the three lemons, and add a quart of
boiling
water. Stir the whole well, cover it up for five minutes, and stir again.
At this crisis (having skimmed off the lemon pips with a spoon) you may taste. If not sweet enough, add sugar to your liking, but observe that it will be a
little
sweeter presently. Pour the whole into a jug, tie a leather or coarse cloth over the top, so as to exclude the air completely, and stand it in a hot oven ten minutes, or on a hot stove one quarter of an hour. Keep it until it comes to table in a warm place near the fire, but not too hot. If it be intended to stand three or four hours, take half the lemon-peel out, or it will acquire a bitter taste.
little
sweeter presently. Pour the whole into a jug, tie a leather or coarse cloth over the top, so as to exclude the air completely, and stand it in a hot oven ten minutes, or on a hot stove one quarter of an hour. Keep it until it comes to table in a warm place near the fire, but not too hot. If it be intended to stand three or four hours, take half the lemon-peel out, or it will acquire a bitter taste.
The same punch allowed to cool by degrees, and then iced, is delicious. It requires less sugar when made for this purpose. If you wish to produce it bright, strain it into bottles through silk.
These proportions and directions will, of course, apply to any quantity.
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