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Bishop
Stick an orange full of cloves, and roast it before the fire, or put it into a hot oven. When of a brown colour cut it into quarters and take out the pips; then put it into a stewpan, and pour over it a bottle of port wine. Add sugar to taste, and let it simmer for a quarter of an hour, then strain and serve.
A mulled port that needs almost nothing translated, though two details in the original are worth pinning down: the roast on the orange and the heat under the pan.
- Roasting the orangeBefore the fire means a slow scorch on all sides, the orange turned as it browns. The original calls for a hot oven if you use one; roast until the skin is brown and blistered and the oils are fragrant, which is the whole point of the step.
- How many cloves"Full" means studded all over; about 20 to 30 whole cloves for a large orange. Push them in to the head so they do not fall out during roasting.
- PipsPips are seeds. Flicking them out matters because they turn the wine bitter over a long, hot infusion.
- StewpanA straight-sided pan with a lid. Any wide saucepan will do; use non-reactive metal, since wine will pick up a metallic edge from bare iron or untinned copper.
- Keep it below a boilA bare simmer for fifteen minutes, as the original directs, extracts the clove and orange oil; a rolling boil will drive off some of the alcohol and cook the port flat and syrupy. Hold it just under boiling, with the surface barely shivering.
- Which portA ruby or a basic reserve port. Nothing aged is wanted here, as the sugar and clove will bury it. Around 750 ml, matching the bottle of the original.
- Sugar to tastePort is already sweet. Start with two tablespoons and taste after the simmer.
- YieldAbout four to six small glasses. Strain through a fine sieve and serve hot in warmed glasses or cups, since it cools very fast.
Bishop is one of a small family of ecclesiastically named mulled drinks that also included Cardinal and Pope, distinguished chiefly by the wine used: port for the Bishop, claret or champagne for the grander offices. The name is usually traced to the deep purple-red of the finished drink and its suggestion of a bishop's robes. It was a fixture of English winter drinking from the eighteenth century onward -- Swift describes roasted oranges with sugar and wine making "a sweet bishop" -- and it is best known now from the closing pages of A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge proposes to discuss Bob Cratchit's affairs over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop.