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Rum and Milk
1 cup of milk 1 teaspoon of sugar 1 tablespoon of brandy Put the ingredients in a lemonade shaker or fruit jar and shake until frothy.
A single-glass invalid drink of the sort that filled the beverage chapters of turn-of-the-century household books. It takes about a minute to make; the only real technique is agitation.
- Rum or brandy?The title says rum, the ingredient list says brandy. Either works at the same quantity — one tablespoon, roughly half an ounce. Follow the ingredient list and use brandy, or substitute rum to match the heading.
- Dissolve the sugar firstA teaspoon of granulated sugar dissolves slowly in cold milk, and hard shaking may leave some grit at the bottom. Stir it into the spirit before adding the milk, or use a spoonful of simple syrup.
- Whole milk, coldThe froth comes largely from milk protein. Chilled milk shaken hard gives the best head, and whole milk a richer one; whatever you use, the foam is short-lived. Serve immediately.
- The shakerA "lemonade shaker" was a lidded metal or glass vessel kept for the purpose. A cocktail shaker or a screw-top jar does the same job; shake hard for 15 to 20 seconds. Ice is not called for and will thin the drink as it melts.
- CurdlingSpirit at this ratio will not curdle milk, but citrus or a large pour will. Keep to the tablespoon and add the spirit to the milk rather than the reverse.
- Milk safetyA drink of this period would have been made with whatever milk was to hand, quite possibly unpasteurised. Use pasteurised milk and the question does not arise.
- Yield and finishingOne cup, one serving.
Spirit-and-milk drinks belong to the sickroom rather than the bar. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cookbooks often grouped them with beef tea, gruel and barley water under headings such as "Drinks for the Sick" or "Beverages for Invalids," on the reasoning that milk supplied nourishment a weak stomach could take while a spoonful of brandy or rum acted as a stimulant hat was standard medically standard well into the era and that survived in domestic manuals long after doctors had begun to abandon it. The same logic produced milk punch, egg nog and the whole family of possets.