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Cool Cup, A
Rub five ounces of loaf sugar upon the rind of a large, fresh lemon. Pour over it a bottle of cider, the juice of the lemon, half a nutmeg grated, and a tumblerful of sherry. Stir it until the sugar is dissolved, and put on it a sprig of borage, thyme, or mint. It will be better if placed on ice for a little while. Time, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 3d., exclusive of the cider and sherry. Sufficient for a one-quart cup.
A Victorian cider cup: a lightly fortified, spiced summer drink meant to be mixed, chilled briefly and drunk the same afternoon. The sugar-and-lemon-peel step at the start is the whole point of it.
- Rub the sugar on the rind firstDragging loaf sugar across the lemon skin abrades out the peel oil and makes what bartenders now call an oleo-saccharum. Granulated sugar in a bowl with pared zest, muddled and left ten minutes, does the same job; skipping it leaves the drink flat and merely sweet.
- Loaf sugarSugar sold in hard cones or blocks, broken up as needed. Five ounces is about 3/4 cup of granulated, which is generous by modern taste for a quart — start with half and add to taste, since ciders vary from bone dry to sweet.
- A bottle of ciderIn an English book of this date this means fermented cider, roughly 4-6% alcohol, in a pint or quart bottle. Unfermented apple juice will work but gives a much sweeter, heavier drink.
- A tumblerful of sherryA tumblerful — A Victorian tumbler is usually reckoned at 8-10 fl oz, which makes a stiff drink; depending on the size of the cider bottle the total may run past the stated quart. 4-5 fl oz of a dry amontillado or fino is closer to what a modern drinker expects.
- Half a nutmegHalf a nutmeg — Half a whole nutmeg grated into a quart is assertive by current standards — something like a teaspoon or more of ground. A quarter nutmeg, freshly grated, is plenty.
- BorageBorage — The traditional herb for cups, cucumber-scented, and the traditional garnish for Pimm's, though cucumber and mint are more usual now. Use the young leaves and the blue flowers; the older leaves are bristly. Mint is the easiest substitute.
- Time and chillingThe quarter-hour is mixing and resting time, not cooking. Chill the mixture rather than dropping ice into it, or strain over ice in the glass, so the cider is not watered down.
- YieldYield — Nominally a quart, which serves four to six in small glasses; with a large bottle of cider and a full tumbler of sherry you may end up with rather more.
"Cups" were a fixture of the Victorian summer: a wine or cider base, sugar, citrus, spice and a herb sprig, mixed in a jug and served at picnics, cricket matches and garden parties, with claret cup and champagne cup as the grander relatives of this cider version. Borage was the conventional garnish long before Pimm's made it famous, valued for its cool cucumber scent and, in older herbals, for a traditional reputation for cheering the spirits. Cassell's gives the cost as threepence exclusive of the drink itself, which tells you the sugar, lemon and nutmeg were the trivial part of the expense and the cider and sherry were assumed to be in the house. The technique of rubbing sugar on citrus rind to capture the oil is older than the book and survives intact in modern bar practice.