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Ale Punch
Put into a bowl one quart of mild ale, one wine-glassful of sherry, the like quantity of brandy, a table-spoonful of icing sugar, the peel and juice of one lemon, a little grated nutmeg, and a small piece of ice. Serve in small tumblers. Probable cost, about 1s. 2d.
A cold ale cup of the kind served from a punch bowl at Victorian summer gatherings. The only real work is the measurements and the choice of ale.
- Wine-glassfulIn Victorian recipe books a wine-glass is reckoned at about 2 fl oz (a quarter cup), not the size of a modern wine glass. So roughly 2 fl oz sherry and 2 fl oz brandy to the quart of ale.
- QuartCassell's is a British book, so this is an imperial quart of 40 imperial fl oz — about 1.14 litres, or nearly two and a half US pints. Two 500 ml bottles of ale falls a little short of it.
- Mild ale"Mild" in the nineteenth century meant young, unaged ale, less hopped and less bitter than keeping ales, rather than the dark modern mild style. A soft brown ale or an English bitter of modest strength works; a heavily hopped IPA will fight the sherry and the nutmeg.
- Icing sugarConfectioners' sugar, which dissolves in cold liquid with little stirring; the recipe itself gives no reason for the choice. Modern icing sugar usually contains cornstarch, which can cloud the punch slightly; caster sugar or a spoonful of sugar syrup avoids that.
- The lemon peelPare the peel in strips with no white pith and let it sit in the sherry and brandy for a few minutes before the ale goes in. That is where the aroma comes from, and it is lost if the peel is grated in with the nutmeg.
- Add the ale lastCombine spirits, sugar, lemon and nutmeg first, then pour the ale down the side of the bowl. Ale poured onto sugar and stirred hard goes flat, and a flat ale cup is thin and sweet.
- The small piece of iceA single large lump chills without diluting; cubes melt fast and water the punch down. Chilling the ale beforehand and using one big block is the modern equivalent.
- YieldAbout 1.3 litres, which is six to eight of the "small tumblers" intended — servings of roughly 5 to 7 oz. Strength works out at something like 6 to 7 per cent, in the range of a strong beer.
Ale cups and ale punches predate the rum and citrus punches that took over English drinking in the eighteenth century; spiced, sweetened ale served in a communal bowl runs back through wassail and the older "ale-berry" and lamb's wool traditions. By the time Cassell's was compiled in the late nineteenth century such drinks had settled into a domestic register — quickly assembled, and served cold in summer. The costing may hint at the intended reader: at around 1s 2d for a bowl serving six or eight, it uses ale as the bulk and small measures of sherry and brandy for the flavour of something grander, though what that sum represented to a given household is a matter of interpretation rather than record.