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COOL CUP (another way) (Put a slice of hot toast)
Put a slice of hot toast, and a quarter of a pound of sugar into a large tankard. Pour over these three table-spoonfuls of brandy, six of sherry, and a pint of good ale. Lay a sprig of balm or borage on the top, and let the liquid stand for a little while. Time to stand, half an hour. Probable cost, 2d., exclusive of the liquids. Sufficient for a quart cup.
A cold ale cup of the sort kept on the sideboard in summer, thickened with sugar and perfumed by a herb float. The toast is the hinge: it is there to carry flavour and to give the sugar something to cling to, not to be eaten.
- The tankardA large tankard held about a quart, which matches the recipe's own "sufficient for a quart cup"; any 1-quart pitcher or jug does the same work. Surviving tankards are commonly pewter or silver.
- Hot toast, cold drinkThe recipe calls for the toast hot, presumably so it gives up its flavour to the liquid. It can be lifted out before serving if you would rather not have sodden bread in the glass.
- Sugar quantityA quarter pound is about half a cup of granulated sugar in roughly a quart of liquid, which is very sweet by current taste. Victorian ale cups were meant to be sweet; halve it if you want the ale to show.
- "Good ale"The recipe does not say what kind. A softer, less aggressively hopped ale served cool rather than cold will sit better with the sugar and sherry than a modern IPA.
- Sherry and brandySix tablespoons is a little under half a cup; three tablespoons of brandy is not quite a quarter cup. A medium or amontillado sherry suits the sweetness better than a dry fino.
- Balm and borageBalm is lemon balm; borage is the blue-flowered herb whose leaves taste faintly of cucumber, and it was a long-standing float for cups and claret. Borage contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, so treat it as a garnish rather than something to consume in quantity.
- Standing timeHalf an hour is enough for the sugar to dissolve and the toast to give up its flavour. Stand the jug in ice water for that time; longer at room temperature and the ale goes flat and warm.
- YieldThe recipe says "sufficient for a quart cup", though the liquids as measured come to appreciably less than that: a pint of ale plus about 4.5 fl oz of sherry and brandy between them. Enough for a few modest glasses, and not a light drink.
- The cost note"2d., exclusive of the liquids" means twopence for the sugar, toast and herb alone, with the drink itself assumed to be already in the house.
Ale cups of this kind were standard summer refreshment in English households well before Cassell's compiled them, and the same formula appears in earlier books as "cool tankard" — ale sweetened, spirited, and scented with a sprig of borage or balm floated on top. Borage was the traditional herb for cooled drinks, and the old belief that it lifted the spirits gave it a place in cups and claret long after anyone believed the medicine; Gerard's herbal of 1597 already repeats the claim. The hot toast is older still, a survival from the practice of steeping toasted bread in ale and wine that gives us the word "toast" for a drink taken in someone's honour. It asked for little: a jug, whatever ale was in the cellar, and the herb border outside the kitchen door.