Cider Cup

A temperance punch built on sweet cider and soda water. It scales easily and the method is sound; only the vocabulary and the vessel sizes need translating.

• Which ciderIn a 1919 temperance book "cider" means sweet, unfermented apple cider, not the alcoholic drink the word denotes in Britain and increasingly in the US. Use fresh unfiltered apple cider, or good cloudy apple juice; anything labelled hard cider changes the drink entirely.
• Seltzer measureTwo pint bottles is 4 cups (about 950 ml), so a single 1-litre bottle of plain seltzer or club soda is the equivalent. Open it cold and add at the last moment or the finished cup goes flat.
• YieldJust over 2 quarts of liquid before ice, which is a dozen or so punch-cup servings or 6 tall glasses. The original assumes a pitcher large enough to hold everything plus cracked ice; a 3-quart pitcher is the practical minimum.
• Bruise, don't shredPress the mint sprigs against the side of the pitcher with a spoon until they smell strongly, then leave them whole. Finely chopped or hard-muddled mint is often said to turn a drink grassy and bitter over a long steep.
• Strain before servingThe recipe never says to remove the mint. Lift the sprigs out after chilling and strain the base through a fine sieve; cider sediment and lemon pulp both settle out during the two hours on ice.
• Fruit juice choice"Any flavor" could mean a bottled raspberry, cherry, currant or grape syrup or juice, many of them sweetened. If you use unsweetened juice, taste before serving and hold back or add to the quarter cup of sugar accordingly.
• Sugar dissolvingGranulated sugar stirred into cold cider tends to sit on the bottom. Dissolve it in the lemon juice first, or stir it well before the two hours on ice so it has time to go into solution.
• "On ice" for two hoursThis means chilled in the icebox, not with ice in the pitcher. Refrigerate the base; the cracked ice goes in only at serving so the drink does not arrive watery.