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To Make Punch
For a gallon of punch take six fresh Sicily lemons; rub the outsides of them well over with lumps of double-refined loaf-sugar, until they become quite yellow; throw the lumps into the bowl; roll your lemons well on a clean plate or table; cut them in half and squeeze them with a proper instrument over the sugar; bruise the sugar, and continue to add fresh portions of it, mixing the lemon pulp and juice well with it.
Much of the goodness of the punch will depend upon this. The quantity of sugar to be added should be great enough to render the mixture without water pleasant to the palate even of a child. When this is obtained, add gradually a small quantity of hot water, just enough to render the syrup thin enough to pass through the strainer.
Mix all well together, strain it, and try if there be sugar enough; if at all sour add more. When cold put in a little cold water, and equal quantities of the best cogniac brandy and old Jamaica rum, testing its strength by that infallible guide the palate. A glass of calves'-foot jelly added to the syrup when warm will not injure its qualities.
The great secret of making good punch may be given in a few words: a great deal of fresh lemonjuice-more than enough of good sugar- a fair proportion of brandy and rum, and very little water.
To make Nectar.
Put half a pound of loaf sugar into a large porcelain jug; add one pint of cold water; bruise and stir the sugar till it is completely dissolved; completely dissolved ; pour over it half a bottle of hock and one bottle of Madeira. Mix them well together, and grate in half a nutmeg, with a drop or two of the essence of lemon. Set the jug in a bucket of ice for one hour.
Two cold drinks, one built on a technique worth knowing and one that is barely more than a wine cup. The punch is written for a cook who will taste as they go; the only fixed quantities are the lemons and, in the nectar, the sugar and wine.
- The hinge: sugar rubbed on peelRubbing sugar lumps over the lemon skins until yellow draws the oil out of the zest into the sugar. This is oleo-saccharum, and it is the whole reason old punch tastes deeper than lemonade with liquor in it. Do not skip it or substitute juice alone.
- Loaf sugar and "double-refined"Loaf sugar came as a hard cone that was nipped into lumps; double-refined was the whitest grade. Modern sugar cubes are the direct equivalent and have the abrasive edge needed for the rubbing; caster or granulated sugar works for the rest of the syrup.
- Sicily lemonsSicilian fruit was the usual imported lemon in British kitchens, and receipts of the period often name it specifically. Any ordinary supermarket lemon is fine, but choose heavy, fragrant, unwaxed fruit, since you are eating the peel oil. Scrub waxed lemons in warm water first.
- The spirit proportions are not given"Equal quantities of the best cogniac brandy and old Jamaica rum" with no volume is deliberate; the author tells you to judge by the palate, and the closing summary asks only for "a fair proportion of brandy and rum, and very little water." The receipt genuinely does not specify, so build it up in small additions and taste.
- Calves'-foot jellyA homemade gelatin, boiled down from split calves' feet, used here for body and a slight silkiness rather than flavour. A tablespoon of plain unflavoured gelatin softened in water and stirred into the warm syrup does the same job. It is optional and the punch is complete without it.
- Yield and servingA gallon is about sixteen half-pint cups, or more if served in small punch glasses. Chill thoroughly and serve from a bowl over a single large block of ice rather than cubes, which dilute fast.
- Nectar: hock and MadeiraHock is English usage for white Rhine wine, so a German Riesling. Madeira should be a medium style such as Verdelho or Bual; a very sweet Malmsey with half a pound of added sugar will be cloying. The finished jug is roughly six to eight servings.
- Essence of lemonA concentrated oil-based flavouring, far stronger than modern lemon extract by volume in some old formulations. "A drop or two" means exactly that; overdosing gives the drink a soapy, furniture-polish note that cannot be corrected.
- A garbled lineThe phrase "just enough to render to render the syrup thin enough" is a compositor's repetition in the original printing, not a second instruction.
Punch reached British and American drinking through the East India trade, and its name is generally traced to the Hindi and Sanskrit word for five, for the five parts of spirit, citrus, sugar, water and spice, though that etymology is traditional rather than settled. By the time Colin Mackenzie's compilation was circulating in the early nineteenth century, the drink had long since settled into the anglophone household as a bowl for company, and the pairing of French cognac with aged Jamaica rum reflects the two most reliable imports on a well-stocked sideboard. What dates the receipt most clearly is its confidence in the tongue over the measuring glass: quantities are given for the lemons and left open for the spirits, on the assumption that the person making it had made it before. The nectar that follows is a wine cup of the same era, cooled in a bucket of ice at a time when ice was cut in winter, packed in sawdust, and treated as a luxury worth an hour of a jug's time.