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Lenox Punch
2 cups water 3/4 cup sugar 2/3 tumbler currant jelly Ice 1 cup orange juice 1/2 cup lemon juice 2 bottles ginger ale 1/3 cup brandy Make a syrup by boiling sugar and water fifteen minutes. Add jelly, and, as soon as dissolved, add a piece of ice to cool mixture; then add fruit juices, ale, and brandy. Color red, freeze to a mush, serve in glasses, and insert in each glass a small sprig of holly with berries.
A frozen punch of the sort served in small glasses between courses at a holiday dinner rather than a drink to be poured by the pitcher. Nothing here is difficult, but two details in the original need translating.
- TumblerIn cookbooks of this period a tumbler is usually reckoned at about 8 ounces, so "2/3 tumbler currant jelly" is roughly 2/3 cup. Warm the jar slightly if the jelly is too stiff to measure.
- Bottles of ginger aleBottle sizes varied; reckoning a bottle at about 12 ounces makes two bottles roughly 3 cups. A dry ginger ale suits the drink, since the syrup already carries plenty of sugar.
- The fifteen-minute syrupBoiling that long reduces the syrup appreciably and concentrates the sugar, which helps the finished punch freeze to a slush rather than a block. Keep it at a steady low boil and do not let it take on color.
- Cool it before the juices go inThe "piece of ice" is simply the fastest way to drop the temperature. Chilling the syrup thoroughly before adding orange and lemon juice keeps the fresh citrus flavor from cooking off, and prevents the ginger ale from foaming away when it is added.
- Freezing to a mushNo ice-cream freezer is needed. Pour into a shallow metal pan, freeze, and stir with a fork every 30 minutes for about 3 hours. The sugar and brandy together will keep it from setting hard, so it stays scrapeable.
- Coloring redThe original leaves the coloring unspecified; cochineal or carmine would have been the usual choices. Currant jelly and the citrus give a good rose color on their own; if you want it deeper, a spoonful of pomegranate or cranberry juice does it without any additive.
- The holly garnishHolly berries and leaves are toxic if eaten and the leaves are sharp. Use a berry-free sprig laid across the rim, or substitute a cranberry and a mint leaf, particularly if children are at the table.
- YieldThe combined ingredients come to something over 6 cups of finished mush, enough for eight to ten small punch or sherbet glasses as a between-course serving.
Lenox, in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, was a fashionable resort at the turn of the twentieth century, and punches of the period were often given place names. This is a frozen punch in the tradition of Roman punch: at a formal Victorian or Edwardian dinner a spoonful of iced, lightly spirituous ice was served partway through the meal as a palate cleanser, which is why the quantities and the glasses are small. The holly and berries point to a Christmas dinner, and the currant jelly was a staple of a well-stocked nineteenth-century pantry, where a jar of it stood ready for meat sauces, tarts and drinks alike.