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Overland Punch
Put one pint of white grape juice, and one quart of ginger ale on ice until very cold. Mix together when ready to serve.
Two ingredients and no cooking, so everything rests on temperature and timing. A few notes on what the 1919 pantry meant by them.
- YieldThree pints total, about six 8-ounce servings or eight smaller punch-cup servings. Scale by keeping the 1:2 ratio of grape juice to ginger ale.
- White grape juice then and nowCommercial white grape juice of the period was typically pressed from Niagara or similar white grapes, and is generally described as thinner and tarter than today's bottled white grape juice, which is often concentrate-based and sweeter. If the finished punch cloys, cut it with a squeeze of lemon rather than more ginger ale.
- Ginger ale was drierGinger ale of this period is generally reckoned a sharper, more gingery drink than most mass-market brands now, though golden and pale dry styles differed considerably. A dry ginger ale keeps the punch from tasting like soda pop; ginger beer will overwhelm the grape.
- Chill, do not iceThe instruction to put both bottles on ice "until very cold" is the hinge. Cold liquid holds carbonation; pouring over ice cubes in the bowl dilutes the punch as they melt and flattens it. Chill the bottles for at least four hours and use an ice ring or frozen grapes if you need cooling in the bowl.
- Mix at the last momentCombine only when the guests are in the room, and pour the ginger ale down the side of the bowl. Stirring vigorously or mixing an hour ahead leaves you with sweet, still grape juice.
- ServingPunch cups or short tumblers. A wheel of lemon or a few white grapes in each glass would not be out of place.
This comes from a book of soft drinks apparently published around the time national Prohibition was arriving, when American hostesses may well have wanted a punch bowl that could stand in for the alcoholic ones they had been filling for a generation. The genre's solution often ran along the same lines: fruit juice for body and flavor, a carbonated mixer for lift and the illusion of something sparkling and celebratory. Grape juice had a particular standing here, since Welch's had been marketed for decades as the temperance communion and table drink, and it carried a respectability that made it the obvious base. The name may nod to the transcontinental railroad-and-motoring vocabulary that American food and drink names are often said to have borrowed freely in the 1910s; there is no evidence of a specific origin story behind it, and "Overland" here probably means little more than that it sounded modern and briskly national.