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Admiral Punch
Make a quart of strong tea and strain into a saucepan with two pounds of sugar, the grated rinds of one orange and three lemons, and boil for five minutes. Strain, and let stand overnight. The next morning mix the juice of six lemons and two oranges, a cup of shredded pineapple, a cup of strawberries, three bananas, sliced, a pint of grape juice, or ginger ale, and one teaspoonful each of bitter almond extract, rose water, and vanilla. Add the fruit to the tea, and pour into a punch bowl over a large block of ice. Just before serving pour in three quarts of Apollinaris.
A large fruit punch built on a sugar-and-tea syrup made the day before. The proportions are for a crowd, and the sweetness is set by that syrup rather than by the fruit.
- ApollinarisA naturally sparkling German mineral water, widely imported before the First World War and still sold. Any dry sparkling mineral water or club soda stands in; three quarts is what turns the concentrate into punch.
- Bitter almond extractModern almond extract is strong stuff and a full teaspoon in a bowl this size will dominate everything. Start with a quarter teaspoon, taste, and add more. Use only commercial food-grade extract, never bitter almond oil or homemade bitter-almond water.
- Rose waterStrengths vary enormously between brands. A teaspoon of a Lebanese or Iranian rose water is assertive; add it after the almond, tasting as you go, or the punch will read as soap.
- The syrupTwo pounds of sugar to a quart of tea is roughly a 1:1 syrup by weight. Boiling five minutes with the grated rinds is a citrus-oil extraction, not a reduction; strain out the zest before the overnight rest or it turns bitter.
- Strong teaBrew black tea at about double normal strength, but keep the steep to four or five minutes. Long steeping pulls tannin that will taste harsh once diluted and turn the punch cloudy when chilled.
- Grape juiceUnsweetened Concord grape juice is the likeliest thing meant, and grape juice generally stood in for red wine in temperance drinks. Ginger ale is the sweeter alternative the recipe offers, so cut the syrup if you use it.
- BananasSlice them at the last moment and add them with the sparkling water. Left in acidic juice overnight or even for an hour they brown and go slack.
- The ice blockA single large block melts slowly and dilutes far less than cubes. Freeze water in a loaf pan or bowl the day before; cubes will thin the punch badly over an evening.
- YieldAround a gallon and a half once the mineral water goes in, which is roughly forty-eight four-ounce punch cups.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the wave of American drink books published as national Prohibition arrived, offering hosts something to put in the punch bowl that was not wine or spirits. Grape juice does the work that claret or burgundy would have done in a nineteenth-century recipe, and its symbolic weight was real: Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels had banned alcohol aboard US warships in 1914, and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan's habit of serving grape juice at official dinners was mocked in the press as "grape juice diplomacy." Whether the name Admiral nods at that is not documented. The structure underneath is old and unchanged: a boiled sugar syrup infused with citrus peel, rested overnight, then let down with juice, fruit and something fizzy over a block of ice.