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Farmerette Punch
Take two tablespoonfuls of ginger syrup, one cup of molasses, half a cup of sugar, a bit of grated lemon peel, and a quart of milk. Stir well, and add a pint of cream, and a little grated nutmeg. Chill, but do not ice.
A cold milk punch of the sort that filled temperance drink books during the First World War. It is simple, but the sweeteners need help dissolving and the chilling instruction is more particular than it looks.
- "Chill, but do not ice"This is the hinge. The punch is meant to be refrigerator-cold and served undiluted, not poured over ice, which would thin the molasses and flatten it. Chill at least three hours, or overnight.
- Ginger syrupA sugar syrup infused with fresh ginger, sold then by druggists and soda fountains. Bottled ginger syrup from the cocktail aisle works, or simmer equal parts sugar and water with sliced fresh ginger for ten minutes and strain.
- MolassesUse unsulphured light or dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will dominate a full quart of milk. A cup is a great deal of molasses; consider starting with half and tasting.
- Dissolving the sweetenersMolasses and sugar seize in cold milk. Whisk the molasses, sugar, ginger syrup and lemon zest together into about a cup of the milk first, then stir in the rest and the cream.
- Grated lemon peelZest only, no white pith. A fine microplane over the bowl catches the oils; some cooks prefer to steep a wide strip of peel in the punch and lift it out before serving.
- CreamA pint of heavy cream to a quart of milk gives a very rich drink by current tastes. Half-and-half, or half the quantity of cream, brings it closer to what most people will want to drink a glassful of.
- YieldClose to two quarts, or a dozen or more small punch-cup servings. Stir again before pouring, as the molasses settles.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon, published in 1919, belongs to the flood of non-alcoholic drink books that appeared as American Prohibition sentiment hardened in the years around the First World War and on the eve of national Prohibition, when "riding the water wagon" was slang for going dry. The name of this punch may point to the farmerettes of the Woman's Land Army of America, the young women recruited from 1917 to work farms while men were in uniform; they became a stock patriotic figure in advertising and light verse, and naming a wholesome milk-and-molasses drink after them would have been of a piece with that. Molasses matters here too: wartime sugar conservation campaigns pressed households to sweeten with molasses, corn syrup and honey where they could, and a punch built on a cup of molasses and only half a cup of sugar reads as a small piece of home-front thrift as much as a recipe.