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Granito Punch, Iced
Rub the yellow rind of an orange and of half a lemon upon two or three lumps of sugar. Mix with them three wine-glassfuls of green tea, and the same of brandy, rum, syrup, maraschino, and pineapple syrup. Add the juice of two lemons, the juice of an orange, and a pint bottle of champagne. When well mixed, freeze as usual, and serve in glasses. Time, about half an hour to prepare. Sufficient for a quart.
A frozen punch of the type served between courses or at the end of a long dinner. The alcohol keeps it from setting hard, so the result is a coarse slush rather than a scoopable ice.
- Wine-glassfulIn Cassell's period a wine-glass is reckoned at about 2 fl oz, roughly a quarter cup. Three wine-glassfuls is therefore about 6 fl oz of each liquid.
- The quantities do not add to a quartSix liquids at about 6 fl oz each, plus the citrus juice and a pint of champagne, comes to roughly a quart and a half. Either halve everything or accept that this makes rather more than the stated quart.
- Rubbing the sugarThis works because Victorian sugar came in hard loaves that could be dragged over the fruit to strip the oil-bearing zest. With modern granulated sugar, use two or three lumps of demerara or simply grate the zest and muddle it into a tablespoon of sugar until damp and fragrant.
- Green teaBrew it strong and let it cool completely before mixing; hot tea will drive off the spirit aromatics. Avoid oversteeping, as tannin turns harsh and metallic once frozen.
- Syrup and pineapple syrup"Syrup" here is presumably a plain sugar syrup, though period syrups were often richer than the modern equal-parts version. Pineapple syrup was a sweetened fruit cordial; canned pineapple juice reduced with sugar, or a bar-grade pineapple syrup, stands in for it.
- MaraschinoNot the sweet red liquid from a cocktail cherry jar. It is a clear, dry cherry-stone liqueur; Luxardo or a similar brand is what the recipe means.
- Freezing"Freeze as usual" meant a pail freezer packed with ice and coarse salt, worked by hand. At this alcohol strength it will never freeze firm. Pour into a shallow metal tray, freeze, and scrape with a fork every 30 to 40 minutes until you have loose crystals; churning in a machine gives a soft slurry instead.
- ServingSmall stemmed glasses, filled from a chilled scoop, and served at once — it slumps within minutes. Half quantities give about eight servings.
A granito is the coarse-crystalled cousin of the water ice, its name from the Italian for grain; the crystals are deliberately left rough rather than churned smooth. Frozen punches of this kind became a fixture of long nineteenth-century dinners, offered as a sorbet course to break the run of rich dishes before the roast, and closely related to the punch à la romaine that survived on grand hotel and liner menus into the 1910s. Iced work of this kind depended on a well-staffed kitchen: ice was bought in blocks, packed with coarse salt in a pail freezer, and turned by hand. The long list of imported liqueurs and syrups — maraschino, rum, champagne, pineapple — suggests what a comfortable late-Victorian household might keep in the cellar.