Punch
Dr. Kitchener was once a considerable authority on all questions of eating or drinking; and he spread abroad a statement which has helplessly been repeated, and starts up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way corners, that Punch-both the name and the drink is of West Indian origin, and means Five. He got the idea of West Indian origin from the rum and the limes which abound in it; but the name is clearly of East Indian growth, and may be recognised in Punjaub-the country of the Five rivers. It is named Punch from the five ingredients which compose it: 1. spirit; 2. acid; 3. spice; 4. sugar; 5. water. English Punch.-1. The spirit is mostly of two kindsbrandy and rum, mixed in proportions which must be left to taste. The rum generally predominates. 2. The acid is nearly always lemon-juice. 3. The spice is nearly always lemon-peel, but sometimes tealeaf, sometimes nutmeg; and as for 4 and 5, the sugar and the water, they explain themselves. Glasgow Punch is made of the coldest spring water.
There are theorists who maintain that punch is always made of hot water, grog of cold water; and that Glasgow punch, therefore, is not punch but grog. Punch is a word which simply means five-it is a composition of five elements; and our receipt for the liquor loved by the West India merchants of Glasgow is classical. It comes from Punch the pen of John Gibson Lockhart, and is to be found in Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk. "The sugar being melted with a little cold water, the artist squeezed about a dozen lemons through a wooden strainer, and then poured in water enough almost to fill the bowl. In this state the liquor goes by the name of sherbet, and a few of the connoisseurs in his immediate neighbourhood were requested to give their opinion of it for in the mixing of the sherbet lies, according to the Glasgow creed at least, one-half of the whole battle. This being approved by an audible smack from the lips of the umpires, the rum was added to the beverage, I suppose in something about the proportion from one to seven. Last of all, the maker cut a few limes, and running each section rapidly round the rim of his bowl, squeezed in enough of this more delicate acid to flavour the whole composition. In this consists the true tour-de-maître of the punch-maker."
Oxford Punch could not be separated from the name of Oxford-which see.
Cambridge Punch, in like manner, will be found under the name of Cambridge.
Milk Punch. - Over the zest of four lemons and a Seville orange pour a pint of rum ; cover it up, and let it stand for twelve hours. Then strain it, and mix with it another pint of rum, a pint of brandy, a pint of sherry, half a pint of lemon-juice, a pineapple peeled, sliced and pounded, a pint of green tea, a grated nutmeg, a pound of dissolved sugar, the whites of two eggs frothed, two pints of boiling water and two of boiling milk. Mix it well, let it stand for a little time, strain it through a beaver jelly-bag, and bottle it. To be served after turtle soup. Roman Punch. - A bottle of Chablis, the same quantity of syrup at 35°, half the quantity of strained lemon-juice. Put it to freeze, and when pretty well frozen work into it Purées two whites of egg whipt with syrup. Put it to freeze again, and when required for use add to it a glass of rum and a pint of champagne. This used to be served between the courses-that is, immediately before the roast. It now comes oftener after the roast.
Punch Sauce.-Make lemon sauce with half the quantity of water; thicken it with two ounces of butter and a teaspoonful of flour; touch it up with a glass of rum, and serve it very hot.
Five recipes are buried in this essay: English punch as a formula, Glasgow punch by way of Lockhart, milk punch, Roman punch and a punch sauce. Most of what needs translating is measurement and equipment.
- Syrup at 35°This is degrees Baumé, a hydrometer reading for sugar density, not a temperature. Syrup at 35°B is a heavy syrup of roughly 65 per cent sugar by weight -- nearer two parts sugar to one of water -- so a rich syrup made with about two parts sugar to one part water, boiled briefly to dissolve and cooled, will serve.
- A bottle of ChablisTake it as 750 ml. With an equal volume of heavy syrup and half a volume of lemon juice, the Roman punch base is very sweet and very sour by modern taste; scale the syrup back if you want it drinkable rather than period-accurate.
- Roman punch is a sorbet"Put it to freeze" means a churned ice, not a chilled drink. Without an ice-cream machine, freeze in a shallow tray and rake with a fork every 30 minutes. The rum and champagne go in at the last moment because alcohol keeps the mixture from setting.
- Raw egg whitesBoth the milk punch and the Roman punch fold in unheated whipped whites. The milk punch at least meets two pints of boiling water and two of boiling milk, but nothing in the Roman punch is ever heated. Use pasteurised whites, and skip them entirely if serving anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised.
- Green teaA pint of green tea means a pint of brewed infusion, not leaves. Brew it weak and let it cool before it meets the spirit, or the tannin dominates.
- Zest, not peelFor the milk punch, pare the lemons and Seville orange with a peeler so no white pith goes in. Twelve hours in rum extracts plenty of oil; pith in the same time turns the batch bitter.
- The curdling is deliberateBoiling milk poured onto half a pint of lemon juice and four pints of spirits and wine will separate at once. That is the whole point of milk punch: the curd traps the solids and the liquid that drains off is brilliantly clear and is said to keep for a long time.
- Beaver jelly-bagA bag of felted wool, dense enough to filter slowly. A double layer of butter muslin lined with a coffee filter does the same job. Let it drip without squeezing, which takes hours, and do not stir the curd back in.
- YieldThe milk punch liquids come to about nine and a half pints, close to five quarts before straining and rather less after, so a few dozen small servings. The Roman punch, once the rum and champagne are in, amounts to well over two quarts of ice.
- Punch sauceLemon sauce made with half the usual water, thickened with 2 oz butter and a teaspoon of flour, then finished with rum. Add the rum off the heat so it does not cook away, and serve it hot over a steamed or boiled pudding.
The five-ingredient etymology given here is the standard one: punch is generally traced to Hindi and Sanskrit pañc, five, the same element that names the Punjab, and the drink appears in English records from the 1630s in the letters and journals of East India Company men. A rival derivation from puncheon, the large cask, has been argued since the nineteenth century and has never been settled. Dr William Kitchiner, whose Cook's Oracle of 1817 made him the household authority Kettner's is happy to correct, had reasoned backwards from the rum and limes to a West Indian origin. The Glasgow recipe is lifted from John Gibson Lockhart's Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk (1819), and its authority rests on the city's West India trade: Glasgow merchants had rum and limes in quantity, and made a cult of the sherbet stage. The Roman punch is a different animal altogether, a spirituous water ice that Victorian and Edwardian menus set between the heavy courses to revive the appetite, which is why Kettner's notes with some care that its place in the running order had lately shifted from before the roast to after it.