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Canadian Cobbler
Half fill a soda-water glass with pounded ice, and add half a small lemon sliced, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, and two glasses of sherry. Mix well together, and drink through a straw. Time to make, a few minutes. Probable cost, 3d., exclusive of the sherry. Sufficient for one person.
A sherry cobbler under another name, and one of the few drinks in Cassell's given in a form a modern bartender would recognise immediately. The measurements are the only thing needing translation.
- "Two glasses of sherry"This means two wine glasses in the Victorian sense, roughly 2 fl oz each, so about 4 fl oz (120 ml) in total. It is a generous but not unreasonable pour for a long iced drink; a single 2 oz measure makes a lighter version.
- Dessert-spoonfulTwo teaspoons, halfway between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. As sugar rather than syrup it wants vigorous mixing, or dissolve it in a splash of water first.
- Soda-water glassA tall, narrow glass of roughly 8-10 fl oz. A highball or Collins glass is the direct equivalent.
- Pounded iceCrushed, not cubed. Wrap cubes in a clean towel and hit them with a rolling pin, or pulse briefly in a blender. The fine ice is what makes the drink; cubes will not chill or dilute it the same way.
- Which sherryRecipes of the period, this one included, rarely name a style. An amontillado or medium oloroso carries the sugar and lemon well. A dry fino works but will taste sharper against the citrus, and a cream sherry makes the sugar redundant.
- The lemonHalf a small lemon in slices, muddled lightly with the sugar before the wine goes in, gives far more flavour than slices dropped on top. Do not crush the pith hard or the drink turns bitter.
- MixingCassell's says only "mix well". Shaking with the ice and straining back over fresh crushed ice gives a frothy, frosted result; stirring in the glass with a long spoon is the simpler alternative.
- YieldOne tall drink, as stated. Scale it by the glass rather than batching, since the crushed ice is doing half the work.
The cobbler is an American invention of the 1830s and 1840s that crossed to Britain with the vogue for iced drinks, and its rise is usually traced to the same technology that made it possible: the commercial ice trade, which put cheap block ice into British bars and hotels for the first time. Sherry was the standard base, and the sherry cobbler became one of the most widely known drinks of the century, praised by Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit, where Mark Tapley makes one for Martin in America. It is also frequently credited with popularising the drinking straw, since fine crushed ice makes sipping from the rim awkward, and Cassell's instruction to "drink through a straw" preserves that logic. Why this one is called Canadian rather than plain sherry is not clear; Victorian drink names travelled loosely, and cobblers were routinely given national labels with little to connect them to the country named.