Cardinal Punch

A frozen punch of the sort served between courses or at receptions, closer to a boozy granita than to a drink. The whole method turns on one point: alcohol will not freeze, so it goes in only after the mixture has already set to a mush.

• The hinge: add the spirits lateBrandy and Curaçao depress the freezing point sharply. Freeze the sweetened juice and tea to a coarse slush first, then stir in the liquor and keep churning; add it at the start and you will get cold syrup that never sets.
• "Make syrup as for Lemon Ice"A cross-reference to another recipe in the book, which is not reproduced here. Period lemon ice syrups were generally made by boiling the water and sugar together and cooling the syrup before the juices went in; adding juice to hot syrup dulls the fresh citrus flavour.
• Tea infusionBrewed tea, made strong; the recipe gives no leaf, quantity or steeping time, so strength is left to the cook. The tannin plausibly serves as backbone against the sugar rather than as a tea flavour in its own right.
• CuracoaThe period spelling of curaçao, the bitter-orange liqueur. Any orange liqueur works; the original would have been a clear or white one rather than the blue bottling sold today.
• Freezing without a crank freezerThe instruction to "freeze to a mush" and continue freezing suits the hand-cranked ice-cream freezer packed with ice and salt, though the recipe does not name any equipment. A shallow metal pan in the freezer, raked with a fork every 30 minutes, will give a comparable granular texture; allow several hours, and longer once the spirits are in.
• SweetnessTwo cups of sugar to four of water is a heavy syrup by modern taste, but frozen mixtures read as much less sweet than they taste warm. Reduce it if you like, expecting a harder, icier result.
• Yield and servingAbout 7 cups before freezing, enough for 10 to 12 small glasses. Frappé glasses are stemmed and shallow; any small stemmed glass will do, chilled first, and the punch should be served the moment it is spooned out.