Milk Punch (Sugar tablespoons brandy)

The text as printed is garbled — the ingredient list has been broken apart, with "1 egg" and "* cup milk" stranded at the end — but the drink is clear enough: a raw egg beaten into sweetened milk with two tablespoons of spirit, aerated by pouring between two tumblers. The raw egg is the problem.

• Raw egg, never heatedThe egg goes into cold milk and is never brought anywhere near a safe temperature. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella both on the shell and within the yolk, and nothing in this method — pouring, frothing, chilling — reduces that risk. A current recipe using pasteurised eggs or a cooked custard base should be used instead.
• The alcohol does not sterilise itTwo tablespoons of brandy in a cup of milk works out to only about four or five percent alcohol by volume in the finished glass. That is far below any level that would inhibit bacterial growth, and the drink is served immediately in any case.
• Who it was poured forMilk punch of this kind was routinely given to invalids, the elderly and convalescents — precisely the groups most vulnerable to egg-borne infection. The period context makes the recipe more risky in practice, not less.
• The missing measurementThe asterisk before "cup milk" stands in for a fraction the typesetting has lost. Comparable period milk punches run to about half a cup to a cup per serving; the original quantity here cannot be recovered with confidence.
• Tumbler and yieldA tumbler of this period is a straight-sided glass of roughly eight to ten ounces. The quantities suggest a single drink.
• Why the pouringPassing the mixture repeatedly between two glasses was the standard pre-blender method of aerating a drink, borrowed from the bar trade. It emulsifies the egg into the milk and builds a light foam — the same principle as the shaken flip.