Claret Punch
Celestine Eustis
Slice three lemons, pour over one wineglassful of Jamaica rum, one glassful of strong green tea, sugar to taste, one bottle of claret. Put in two or three cupfuls of well-pounded ice.
A lighter, wine-based punch — and the splash of green tea is a genuine old-fashioned trick, not a mistake.
- Claret = red Bordeaux“Claret” is the old English name for the dry red wines of Bordeaux; any dry red Bordeaux, or a Cabernet-Merlot blend, is right.
- Wineglass of rumAbout ¼ cup (2 oz) of Jamaica rum lifts and warms the wine.
- Why green teaTea contributes tannin and a subtle aromatic backbone that keeps a wine punch from tasting flat and oversweet — a standard move in Victorian punch-making.
- Sugar to tasteStart with 2–3 Tbsp and adjust; claret’s dryness wants a little more sugar than you’d expect.
- Well-pounded iceFinely crushed ice chills fast and dilutes gently as it goes; add it just before serving.
Claret is one of England’s oldest wine words, from the Old French clairet for a pale red, and for centuries it has meant the red wine of Bordeaux specifically — a legacy of the medieval years when that corner of France was English-ruled and its wine flowed across the Channel by the barrel. American cookbooks inherited the term wholesale. A claret cup or claret punch was the genteel warm-weather drink of the nineteenth century, lighter than a spirit punch and respectable enough to serve guests in the afternoon.
From page 83 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
