Apple Toddy
Half a gallon of apple brandy half a pint of French brandy, half a pint of peach brandy, half a pint of Madeira wine six apples, baked without peeling, one pound of sugar with enough hot water to dissolve it; spice if you like. This toddy bottled after straining, will keep for years and improve with age.--Mrs. C. C. McP.
Apple Toddy.
One gallon of apple brandy or whiskey, one and a half gallon of hot water, well sweetened one dozen large apples, well. roasted, two grated nutmegs, one gill of allspice, one gill of cloves, a pinch of mace. Season with half a pint of good rum. Let it stand three or four days before using--Col. S.
Two versions of the same Christmas punch, one a fortified keeper and one a hot party bowl. Both are written for a household expecting a crowd, and both need scaling before they make sense on a modern counter.
- A gillA gill is half a cup, 4 fluid ounces. A gill each of allspice and cloves is a startling quantity of whole spice — about a cup of spice for something over two gallons of finished toddy — and it may dominate everything unless you cut it back or shorten the steeping.
- YieldThe first version makes about three quarts of very strong toddy; the second, with its gallon and a half of hot water added, makes something over two and a half gallons. Quartering either is sensible unless you are actually filling a punch bowl for twenty.
- Apple brandyThis means applejack — American apple spirit, historically distilled from cider. Modern bonded applejack or a good calvados both work; the sweetened apple-flavored liqueurs sold today are not the same thing and will make the drink cloying.
- Peach brandyOnce a common Southern farmhouse spirit, now uncommon. Look for a true peach eau-de-vie rather than a peach schnapps or liqueur, which carries far more sugar than the recipe accounts for.
- Roasting the applesThe recipe gives no temperature or time: bake them whole and unpeeled in a moderate oven, around 350F, until they collapse and the skins split — likely three-quarters of an hour or more depending on size. The point is concentrated apple sugar and the caramelized juice, not tender fruit; underbaked apples give the toddy very little.
- StrengthThe first recipe is essentially spirit sweetened with sugar water — little dilutes it beyond the syrup and the apple pulp, so it will land somewhere around 30 percent alcohol by volume, depending on the strength of the brandies. The second, cut with a gallon and a half of water, is a hot drink of ordinary punch strength. Do not treat them as interchangeable by the cupful.
- KeepingThe claim that the bottled toddy keeps for years rests on the alcohol level of the first version, which is high enough to be self-preserving. Strain it thoroughly through cloth first; apple pulp left in suspension will settle and sour the look of the bottle even if it does not spoil.
- Standing timeCol. S.'s three or four days is not optional. The roasted apple and whole spice need that long to give up their flavor into the water and spirit; served the same day it is thin and raw.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in the late 1870s, gathered recipes over the signatures of contributors across the state, which is why two apple toddies with different proportions sit side by side here rather than being reconciled into one. The word toddy came into English from India, generally traced to the Hindi tari, the fermented sap of the palm, and by the eighteenth century had settled in Britain and America to mean spirit, sugar, hot water and spice. Apple toddy in particular belonged to the Virginia and Maryland Christmas season, made from the applejack that cider-growing farms produced as a matter of course, and the bowl was traditionally set out for callers through the holidays. The instruction to bottle and keep points to a household storing its punch against later use — a habit that only works at the alcohol strength of the first recipe.