Shandy Gaff
INGREDIENTS for pint mug, pint of good bitter ale, pint or a bottle of ginger beer; if liked, a dash of liqueur ice. AVERAGE COST, without the liqueur, 3d.
SHEEP'S FEET.
Put some lumps of ice in a tankard, and pour the ale and ginger beer over, adding a little liqueur, if liked.
SEASONABLE in summer.
A two-ingredient summer drink that depends entirely on proportion and temperature. Mixed in the mug, no shaking or stirring beyond what the pour does.
- QuantitiesThe stated amounts do not add up to a pint mug as printed; the classic proportion is half and half, so half a pint of ale to half a pint of ginger beer. Adjust toward the ginger beer if your ale is heavily hopped.
- Bitter aleA British-style bitter or pale ale, around 3.5-4.5% and served cellar-cool rather than cold. A hop-forward modern IPA will fight the ginger; a plain bitter, brown ale or lager works better.
- Ginger beerVictorian ginger beer was lightly fermented and often cloudy, its fizz coming from the ferment rather than from added gas; sweetness varied a good deal by recipe. A dry ginger ale, or a sharp ginger beer, keeps the drink from turning syrupy.
- The liqueurOptional and unspecified; the recipe says only "a dash", and gives no measure. Brandy, a ginger liqueur or ginger wine would all suit.
- IceIce was not something every household could count on in this period. It dilutes fast in a carbonated drink, so use a few large lumps rather than cubes, or chill both bottles and skip it.
- PouringAle first, ginger beer poured down the inside of the mug afterwards, or the two heads will foam over the rim.
- Cost and yieldThe 3d is the book's estimate for the ingredients of the drink, excluding the liqueur. As written this makes one tankard.
The shandy gaff appears in print in English sources from the mid-nineteenth century, well before Mrs Beeton's later editions collected it here, and the name's origin is genuinely obscure - it is often linked to "shant of gatter", Victorian slang in which "shant" is a pot or quart and "gatter" is beer, though this derivation is traditional rather than documented. Cutting beer with ginger beer stretched the ale, cut the bitterness, and produced something acceptable for daytime and hot-weather drinking. The modern shandy, made with lemonade rather than ginger beer, is the same idea with a different mixer, and largely displaced the older version in Britain during the twentieth century.