Home › The Principles of Cookery › NEGUS (another way)
NEGUS (another way)
Sweeten the wine according to taste, and grate a little nutmeg into it. The proportions are generally three ounces of sugar and a quarter of a small nutmeg to a pint of port. Mix with it an equal quantity of boiling water, and serve either hot or cold. The thin rind of a lemon or a Seville orange, without any of the inside of the fruit, is a great improvement to negus. Time a few minutes to prepare. Probable cost, according to the quality of the wine. Sufficient for a quart of negus.
A two-ingredient drink whose success is entirely a matter of proportion and temperature. The original gives clear weights, which converts easily.
- The proportions in cupsThree ounces of sugar is a scant half cup of granulated. A pint here is the British 20-ounce pint, so figure roughly 2 1/2 cups port to 2 1/2 cups boiling water, which gives the promised quart.
- Heat the water, not the wineThe boiling water does all the heating; the port itself should never go on the fire. Simmered port turns flat and stewed, and the alcohol that carries the aroma boils off first.
- NutmegA quarter of a small whole nutmeg grated is roughly 1/2 teaspoon. Grate it fresh into the wine before the water goes in; pre-ground nutmeg is noticeably less aromatic.
- The peel is the pointPare the rind in wide strips with a vegetable peeler and take none of the white pith, which is bitter. Seville oranges are a winter-only bitter variety sold for marmalade; ordinary lemon zest is the practical substitute.
- What port to useA basic ruby port is correct here. Vintage or aged tawny is wasted, since sugar, nutmeg and an equal volume of water flatten any subtlety.
- StrengthCut half and half with water, the finished drink lands around 9 or 10 percent alcohol, roughly table-wine strength rather than the mild punch the name suggests.
- ServingA quart serves six to eight in small glasses or punch cups. Warm the vessels first with hot water or the drink will be lukewarm by the second sip.
Negus is generally traced to Colonel Francis Negus, an English courtier of the early eighteenth century who is said to have proposed diluting the company's port with hot water to keep a political argument from turning into a brawl. By the nineteenth century the name had detached from him entirely and meant any sweetened, spiced, watered wine served warm, and it was the standard drink pressed on children at parties, invalids in the sickroom and guests arriving cold from a journey — Dickens's characters drink it constantly. It needed no skill and no equipment: a kettle, a nutmeg grater and whatever wine was in the house. The port-and-water ratio also tells you something about how much cheap, heavily fortified port was circulating in Victorian Britain.