Mulled Ale
INGREDIENTS for sufficient for 4 persons.-1 quart of good ale, 1 glass of rum, 1 tablespoonful of pounded sugar, a grate of nutmeg, 4 cloves. AVERAGE COST, 10d.
Put the sugar and cloves in the ale, and make it hot in a mull or saucepan, warm a jug, pour in this and add the rum and grated nutmeg to taste.
SEASONABLE in winter.
A four-ingredient winter drink whose whole success rests on temperature control. Everything else is seasoning to taste.
- Do not let it boilThe recipe says only to make it hot. Hard simmering drives off the volatiles and much of the alcohol and can leave the ale bitter and thin; bring it to steaming and hold it briefly to draw out the cloves.
- Add the rum off the heatThe recipe is deliberate about this: the rum goes into the warmed jug, not the pan. It keeps the spirit's aroma intact rather than cooking it away.
- A quartBeeton's quart is the imperial one, 40 fl oz, roughly two British pints of ale. Two 500 ml bottles come close enough. A US quart of 32 fl oz will simply give a smaller, slightly stronger drink.
- A glass of rumLoosely a wine glass in period usage, about 2 to 2.5 fl oz. Dark or aged rum suits the malt far better than white.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar so it dissolves quickly, close to caster or superfine sugar today. Granulated works if you give it a stir.
- A mullA conical or slipper-shaped copper or tin vessel pushed into the embers of the fire to heat liquids fast without scorching. A heavy-based saucepan over low heat does the same job.
- Choice of aleThe recipe does not define "good ale." A malty, not heavily hopped English style such as a mild, a brown ale or a soft bitter suits the spicing; heavily hopped modern IPAs can turn aggressively bitter when heated.
- ClovesFour whole cloves in a quart is restrained, and worth keeping so. Strain them out before pouring, or they keep infusing in the jug and take over.
- YieldFour servings of roughly 10 fl oz each, which is a generous mug. Serve immediately; it does not hold well and cannot usefully be reheated.
Mulling — heating ale or wine with sugar and spice — was standard winter practice in British households long before Beeton, and turns up under names such as lambswool, wassail and negus depending on the base and the additions. Its logic was practical as much as festive: spices and sugar masked ale that had gone slightly stale, and a hot drink was a real comfort in unheated rooms. Beeton uses the word "mull" for the vessel without explaining it, which suggests it needed no gloss for her readers. The recipe's average cost of 10d places it as an ordinary domestic treat rather than a luxury, and the note "seasonable in winter" reflects the book's practice of giving a seasonal note with its recipes.