Victoria Punch

A frozen punch of the sort served in a stemmed glass, either between courses or as a cold sauce over a plain pudding. The method is borrowed from the book's Cardinal Punch: boil the sugar with the water into a syrup, cool it, add juices, rind and spirits, then strain and freeze.

• The syrup firstDissolve the 2 cups sugar in the 3 1/2 cups water over heat, then cool it thoroughly before anything alcoholic or acidic goes in. The recipe sends the cook to Cardinal Punch for the method, so follow whatever that recipe gives. Adding juice to hot syrup dulls the fresh citrus flavour.
• Angelica wineAngelica is a sweet fortified white wine from California, brandy-fortified and around 18 percent alcohol. It is scarce outside specialist merchants; a sweet muscat, a white port or a cream sherry gives the same weight and sweetness.
• Cider means sweet ciderCider -- most likely sweet, unfermented cider here, though American usage of the period is inconsistent and "cider" can also mean the fermented drink. Either would serve; one cup of hard cider would add very little alcohol to the whole.
• Freeze to a slush, not a blockSugar and alcohol together both depress the freezing point, so this will never freeze hard. Churn it in an ice cream machine or still-freeze in a shallow pan, raking with a fork every 30 minutes, and serve it as a coarse spoonable ice.
• Strain, and strain earlyGrated orange rind gives the flavour but turns stringy and bitter in a frozen mixture. Let it steep in the cooled syrup half an hour, then strain through a fine sieve before freezing, as the recipe directs.
• The gin is a seasoningA tablespoon and a half in some seven cups is there for the juniper note, not for strength. A London dry gin suits it; a heavily botanical modern gin will dominate the citrus.
• YieldRoughly seven cups of liquid, which will give about 10 to 12 small punch-glass servings once frozen.