Bulgarian Tea

A cold tea punch scaled for a party, written in the shorthand of a cook who assumed you knew what to do with it. The one thing to get right is the tea itself: a gallon brewed strong enough to survive dilution, then cooled before anything else goes in.

• The gallon of teaBrew black tea, strain and cool it before anything else goes in. The recipe's "If strong, add more water" shows the strength was meant to be adjusted at the end rather than fixed in advance. Don't over-steep: over-steeped tea turns bitter and cloudy once chilled, and the sugar syrup will not hide it.
• Peel, not pith"Put rinds... on to boil" means the lemon rinds after juicing. Pare off the yellow zest with a peeler and leave the white pith behind, or the syrup goes bitter. Simmer zest, 2 cups sugar and 1 pint water about 5 minutes, then strain.
• The lemon juice is impliedThe recipe never says to add it, but the juice of six lemons (about 1 cup) is the point of the drink. Add it with the syrup and taste before sweetening further.
• Maraschino cherries then and nowMaraschino cherries came bottled in a sweet syrup, so the juice the recipe explicitly calls for contributes both sugar and colour. A modern jar of roughly 10 oz is a reasonable stand-in, though the period bottle size is not recorded; account for its sweetness before adding "more if needed."
• Canned pineapplePeriod can sizes are not given in the recipe; a 20-oz can is a reasonable modern stand-in. Note that the recipe asks for juice only with the cherries, so including the pineapple juice is a choice rather than an instruction.
• Yield and serviceYou end up with roughly 6 to 7 quarts, depending on how much water is added to cut the tea. Chill thoroughly and pour over ice in the bowl rather than into it, so the fruit is not diluted into water.
• StrawberriesHull and halve them and add in the last half hour only. Left to steep, they collapse and cloud the liquid.