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Woodford Punch
Make two quarts of strong tea and add one pound of sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. When the tea is cold add the grated rinds and juice of eight lemons, one pineapple grated, three bananas sliced, and one pint of strawberries. Put on ice until well blended. Serve very cold.
A Prohibition-era fruit punch that depends entirely on how the tea is handled: brewed strong for body, then sweetened while hot and chilled before any fruit goes in. The fruit macerates in the cold tea rather than being stirred in at the last minute.
- Strong teaFor two quarts, use roughly two teaspoons of black tea per cup of water, steeped three to five minutes and strained. Longer steeping to build strength only extracts tannin, and a punch this sweet will still taste harsh over it.
- A pound of sugarThat is about 2 1/4 cups granulated, dissolved in two quarts of tea. It is very sweet by current taste; a half pound is closer to modern punch and still balances the eight lemons. Dissolve it in the tea while hot, then cool.
- Grated rindsOnly the yellow zest, no white pith. Eight lemons' worth of zest is a lot of oil for two quarts, and it will turn bitter if left in for hours. Steep the zest in the sweetened tea for 20 to 30 minutes, then strain it out before adding the juice and fruit.
- "Put on ice"In the period this meant setting the vessel in the icebox or in a tub of ice to chill and blend, not dropping ice into the punch. Refrigerate two to four hours. Add ice to the bowl or the glasses at the moment of serving so the punch is not watered down.
- Grated pineappleA whole pineapple, peeled, cored and grated or pulsed to a coarse pulp with its juice. Fresh is what the recipe means; canned pineapple in syrup will push the sweetness further up and should be drained.
- BananasSliced banana goes soft within an hour or two in the punch, though the lemon juice will slow any browning. Slice them in during the last half hour of chilling if you want them to hold their shape.
- StrawberriesA pint, hulled and halved or sliced. Out of season, frozen berries work and help chill the bowl, but thaw and drain them first or they will dilute the punch as they melt.
- Yield and servingAbout four quarts once the fruit is in, or roughly 25 punch-cup servings. Serve with the fruit floating; a ladle with a wide bowl is more useful than a narrow one.
This is a standard temperance-style punch: strong tea standing in for a wine or rum base, a heavy sugar load, a great deal of citrus, and whatever fruit was to hand. Named punches in collections of this kind were often tied to a place, a club or a hostess rather than to any fixed method, and the book itself gives no attribution for this name. Tea-based punch was not an invention of the dry years; it had long been a fixture of church socials, ladies' luncheons and summer receptions.