Mint Cup
Place in a large bowl 2 cups hot tea, and add a cup of crushed mint leaves. Let stand until cold and strain. Add to the mint flavored tea the juice of three oranges and lemons, 1 cup shredded canned pineapple, 1 cup simple syrup and 1 pint white grape juice. Let stand on the ice to chill and ripen. When ready to serve, add 1 quart cracked ice, and 1 quart chilled mineral water, with 3 drops oil of peppermint. Mix well stir in two diced bananas and 1/2 pint of maraschino cherries with the juice. Serve in tall glasses, and garnish each with a bouquet of fresh mint. Serves 12.
A punch-bowl cooler from the era when a party beverage was assembled in stages and left to "ripen" before serving. Everything but the ice, the fizz and the fruit can be made a day ahead.
- Steep the mint, don't stew itThe mint goes into hot — not boiling — tea and cools in it, which draws out the aroma without the bitter, hay-like edge that long heat produces. Bruise the leaves rather than pulverising them, and strain through a fine sieve so no shredded green flecks remain.
- "Three oranges and lemons"Read as three of each: roughly 1 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup lemon juice. The proportion matters more than the count, since citrus sizes vary; taste and adjust against the syrup.
- Simple syrupSugar and water in roughly equal parts, warmed until clear and then cooled. A cup of such syrup carries somewhere around two-thirds to three-quarters of a cup of sugar, which is what stands up to the lemon and the tea tannin.
- Mineral waterIn this period the term usually points to bottled effervescent water — seltzer or club soda — though still bottled waters were sold under the same name. Add it at the last moment, poured down the side of the bowl, or the cup goes flat before the second round.
- Oil of peppermintThis is the concentrated essential oil, not extract, and three drops for a gallon of punch is deliberate. Measure it onto a spoon first rather than shaking the bottle over the bowl; a slip turns the whole batch medicinal, and it cannot be corrected.
- Canned pineappleShredded or crushed pineapple in juice, drained, is the modern equivalent. Fresh pineapple works but is sharper, so cut the lemon back slightly.
- Bananas lastDice them into the bowl only at serving, as the recipe directs. Held in acid punch they soften and can cloud the liquid, so there is nothing gained by adding them ahead.
- Ice and yieldA quart of cracked ice is dilution as much as chilling — the cup is built to be drunk over the following hour, not to sit. Serves 12 in tall glasses; scale the ice down and use a chilled bowl if it must stand longer.