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Orange Punch
Add the grated rind of two oranges to one pound of sugar and one pint of water. After the sugar is thoroughly dissolved boil for five minutes. Set aside to cool and then add the juice of four oranges and one lemon. When ready to serve add cracked ice and a quart of Apollinaris. This is sufficient for four people.
A flavored sugar syrup thinned with sparkling mineral water. The whole thing hinges on the rind: grating it into the syrup before boiling extracts the peel oils, which carry nearly all the orange aroma.
- ApollinarisA naturally carbonated mineral water from the Ahr valley in Germany, sold in enormous quantities in America before Prohibition and still available. Any dry sparkling mineral water works; club soda is closer than seltzer because the added minerals give the same faintly saline edge.
- Syrup proportionsOne pound of sugar to one pint of water is roughly 2 cups sugar to 2 cups water — a light 1:1 syrup, not the 2:1 rich syrup some modern bar books call for. Do not substitute, or the punch will be cloying.
- The five-minute boilThe boil is specified after the sugar has already dissolved, so it does more than dissolve; the rind is in the pan throughout. Covering the pan as it cools will help keep the volatile peel oils in the syrup, though the recipe does not say to do so.
- Strain before servingThe recipe never says to remove the grated rind. Pour the cooled syrup through a fine sieve or a doubled square of cheesecloth, pressing the solids, unless you want zest suspended in every glass.
- Cracked iceCracked, not cubed — irregular shards chill fast and dilute fast, which is what a punch of this style expects. Add it at the last moment and expect the drink to soften as it sits.
- YieldRoughly 2 quarts once the water is in, so "sufficient for four people" means four generous tumblers with refills. It scales cleanly; make the syrup a day ahead and keep it refrigerated.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon, published in 1919, belongs to the small flood of non-alcoholic drink books that appeared as national Prohibition approached — the title is a pun on "on the water wagon," the older form of the phrase we now render as "on the wagon." Their job was to persuade hosts that a punch bowl could still be a punch bowl, and one common approach was the one used here: a boiled flavoring syrup, citrus juice, and a bottle of imported sparkling mineral water standing in for the champagne or claret that a pre-1920 orange punch would have taken. Apollinaris in particular had spent decades being advertised in America as "the Queen of Table Waters," which made it the respectable, faintly luxurious choice for exactly this purpose; naming a brand was part of the reassurance.