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Heidelberg Punch, or Hebe's Cup
Take a fresh frame-grown cucumber. Cut an inch and a half of it into thin slices, and put them into a punch-bowl with the thin rind of a sound lemon and three table-spoonfuls of pounded sugar. Work them well together for four or five minutes with the back of a wooden spoon; then pour over them three table-spoonfuls of brandy, six of sherry, a bottle of soda-water, and a bottle of claret. Mix these ingredients thoroughly, and let them remain for one hour. Just before serving add another bottle of soda-water. Probable cost, 6d., exclusive of the spirits and wine. Sufficient for a three-pint bowl.
A Victorian claret cup, built on a cucumber-and-lemon sugar rub rather than fruit juice. The measurements make sense once you know how small a bottle of soda-water used to be.
- The hinge: work the sugar hardCrushing the cucumber slices and lemon rind with sugar for a full four or five minutes is what makes the drink. The sugar draws the oil out of the rind and the cool green flavour out of the cucumber; skip or shorten it and you have plain wine and soda.
- Frame-grown cucumberGrown under glass in a frame, so thin-skinned and mild. An English or Persian cucumber is the closest match. The skin is wanted for its flavour, so a thick-skinned waxed field cucumber, whose peel can be bitter, is worth avoiding.
- Bottles of soda-waterA Victorian soda bottle was far smaller than a modern litre, somewhere between a split and a half-pint depending on the maker. Two of them with a 750 ml bottle of claret and the spirits will not quite fill a three-pint bowl, so judge the soda by the size of your bowl, adding roughly a glassful at each stage.
- Claret and sherryClaret means red Bordeaux, or any dry medium-bodied red. The recipe does not say which sherry; a dry fino or amontillado suits it better than a sweet cream, since the sweetening is already provided by the sugar.
- Pounded sugar and spoon sizesPounded sugar is sugar broken from the loaf and crushed fine, near enough to caster sugar. Period spoon sizes were not standardised, so treat the measures loosely: three tablespoonfuls of sugar is on the order of 40 g, and the brandy and sherry roughly 45 ml and 90 ml.
- Strain and chillChilling -- The original calls for no ice. Chilling the wine and soda beforehand keeps the cup cold without watering it. Nothing in the recipe says to strain, but the slices and rind can be lifted out after the hour if you would rather not serve them.
- YieldThree pints, or about eight small cups. At roughly 10 per cent alcohol before the second soda goes in, it is a party drink rather than a long one.
Cassell's gives this cup two names, both of which would have carried associations for a reading public that knew its classics and its German universities: Hebe was cupbearer to the Olympian gods, while Heidelberg meant student drinking societies and the enormous wine tun in the castle cellar. The recipe itself belongs to the Victorian family of claret cups and wine cups water and scented with citrus peel, cucumber or borage ut but but with far less spirit in it, suitable for garden parties and summer suppers. A cucumber slice is still floated in a jug of Pimm's today. The costing of 6d. exclusive of the spirits and wine is characteristic of the dictionary, which priced dishes so a household could budget a menu.