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Ginger Ale Punch
1/2 C mint leaves 1 C boiling water ½ C sugar 2 pts. Ginger Ale Juice 3 lemons 1 pt. grapejuice The boiling water is poured over the mint leaves, sugar and grated rind of one lemon. Let stand until cool, strain and add other ingredients. Use cracked ice. Serves twenty-five. 3 juicy oranges Mrs. B. H. Whitman.
A church-supper punch built on a mint syrup, with the ingredient list scrambled by the typesetter — the three oranges appear at the end, after the signature, and belong with the lemons.
- Reading the list"C" is cup, "pts." is pints. The full set is 1/2 cup mint leaves, 1 cup boiling water, 1 1/2 cups sugar, juice of 3 lemons plus the grated rind of one, juice of 3 oranges, 1 pint grape juice and 2 pints ginger ale.
- The syrup is the hingePouring boiling water over mint, sugar and zest and letting it cool undisturbed is an infusion, not a boil. Bruise the leaves lightly if you like, but do not simmer them — cooked mint turns grassy and slightly bitter.
- Ginger ale goes in lastChill the strained syrup and juices together, then add the ginger ale over the ice just before serving. Mixed in early it flattens within the hour.
- Grape juiceThis means unfermented bottled grape juice, most likely the sweet purple Concord type sold commercially at the time. It carries the colour of the punch; a modern 100% Concord juice is the closest match, and a paler varietal juice will read thin.
- Cracked iceCracked rather than cubed ice chills fast and dilutes fast. For a punch bowl standing through a reception, a single large frozen block or a ring mould of grape juice holds the temperature without watering the mixture down.
- YieldThe finished volume is a little over two quarts. Twenty-five servings means the small punch cup of a church parlour, not a tumbler; count on eight to ten if you are pouring proper glassfuls.
- SweetnessA cup and a half of sugar against sweetened grape juice and ginger ale is heavy by current taste. The three lemons and three oranges are what keeps it drinkable, so do not shortchange the citrus.
This is a wineless punch, and that appears to be the point of it: a church congregation compiling a cook book wanted a bowl that could sit at a wedding reception or a Ladies' Aid social without wine in it. Bottled ginger ale and commercial grape juice made that possible on a domestic scale — both were widely available by the early twentieth century, and unfermented grape juice in particular was promoted in church circles as a respectable substitute for wine. The mint syrup is the older element, a technique for flavouring cold drinks that predates the fizz. Recipes like this are also a small social document: they carry the contributor's name, Mrs. B. H. Whitman, which was how a woman's kitchen reputation circulated in a small town.