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Pineapple Julep
Pare a very ripe pineapple with as little waste as possible, and cut it into thin slices. Lay these in a large bowl, and strain over them the juice of two sweet oranges. Pour in a quarter of a pint of maraschino, a quarter of a pint of gin, and a quarter of a pint of raspberry syrup, and mix thoroughly. Just before serving, add a bottle of sparkling Moselle and a tumblerful of shaved ice.
A punch bowl drink in the American julep style, built on macerated pineapple and finished with sparkling wine. The whole point is the contrast between the steeped fruit base and the cold, still-fizzing wine, so the assembly order matters more than the exact spirits.
- The hinge: wine last, ice lastThe base of fruit, juice, liqueur, gin and syrup should be mixed and chilled ahead — an hour or two in the refrigerator does the maceration work. The Moselle and ice go in at the table, or the drink is flat before the first glass is poured.
- A quarter of a pintIn this book that is a British gill, 5 fl oz or about 140 ml. Three of them makes roughly 425 ml of spirits and syrup, which is a strong base; taste before the wine goes in and hold back some of the gin if it is too forward.
- A bottle of sparkling MoselleSweetish German sparkling Riesling, sold now as Sekt. A modern bottle is 750 ml. A dry Sekt, Prosecco or a Crémant will all work, though the drier the wine the more the raspberry syrup shows.
- MaraschinoThe clear, faintly bitter cherry-kernel liqueur from Zadar, not the syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Luxardo and Maraska are the usual bottles; there is no good substitute, and swapping in cherry brandy makes a much sweeter drink.
- GinOld Tom, a lightly sweetened style, was widely sold in this period, though unsweetened dry gin was also available and the recipe does not specify which is meant. A modern London dry works and gives a cleaner, drier result; if you use Old Tom, cut the raspberry syrup back.
- Raspberry syrupNot cordial or squash. Either a bottled fruit syrup for cocktails or your own — equal weights raspberries and sugar, warmed until the sugar dissolves, then strained.
- The pineappleCut out the fibrous core along with the skin. Do not macerate overnight; the thin slices go soft sitting in spirit and syrup.
- Shaved ice, not cubesA tumblerful is roughly 8-10 fl oz by volume. Shaved or crushed ice chills fast and dilutes fast, which is what a julep wants; if you would rather it kept its strength, chill everything hard instead and use less ice.
- YieldAround 1.3 litres of liquid before ice -- eight to ten punch cups, and potent for its size.
By the later nineteenth century "julep" had drifted well away from its origins: the word descends through Arabic julāb from Persian gulāb, rose water, and in early English use it meant a sweetened medicinal draught. American bar culture attached it to the spirit-and-mint drink served over broken ice, and from there it became a loose label for almost any iced, fruited, bowl-served mixture. This one is really a wine cup, the drink that filled Victorian summer garden parties and ball suppers, and its ingredient list reads like an inventory of what a well-stocked late-century sideboard imported: Dalmatian maraschino, Moselle Sekt, and pineapple, which was arriving in Britain by steamer from the Azores and the West Indies cheaply enough to slice into a punch bowl rather than display as a centrepiece.