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Russian Punch
1 quart of black tea made as for drinking, (1 oz. in a quart of water.) 1 pint of water. 1 pint of port wine. Half pint of brandy. 1 1/2 pounds of sugar. 3 lemons. Little caramel to color.
Cut the lemons in small slices in a bowl, make a boiling syrup of the sugar and water and pour over them and let stated till cold. Then add the tea and liquors and strain the punch into a freezer and freeze as hard as the spirit in it will allow. Keep the lemon slices on ice and mix them in the frozen punch at last. This should be light ale colored. Use carmel if necessary.
This is a frozen punch — an alcoholic ice meant to be served slushy in small glasses, not a drink poured over ice. Most of what needs translating is the equipment and the effect the spirits have on freezing.
- The hinge: it will never freeze solidRoughly 24 oz of port and brandy in about two and a half quarts of liquid keeps the mixture at a soft slush no matter how long you churn. "As hard as the spirit in it will allow" is the instruction, and it is literal — expect the texture of a loose granita.
- "A freezer"In this period that means a hand-crank ice cream freezer, a canister packed in ice and rock salt. An ice cream machine works; so does the granita method of freezing in a shallow metal pan and raking it with a fork every 30 minutes.
- The tea is strongOne ounce of loose black tea to a quart is about 28 g, roughly two to three times normal drinking strength despite the recipe calling it "made as for drinking." Steep it briefly — three minutes — or the tannin will turn harsh and bitter once sugar and cold flatten the aromatics.
- Caramel means colouring, not sauceNineteenth-century kitchens kept a bottle of sugar burnt nearly black and let down with water, used by the drop purely for colour. Modern gravy browning or a commercial caramel colour does the same job. It is optional; the note "use caramel if necessary" means only if the punch looks too pale.
- Sugar is structuralA pound and a half is not simply sweetness — with the alcohol it governs how coarse the ice crystals grow. Cutting it substantially gives a hard, gritty block rather than a scoopable slush.
- "Let stated" is a typesetter's errorRead it as "let stand." The boiling syrup goes over the sliced lemons and sits until cold, which draws the oil out of the peel — that oil, not the juice, is most of the flavour.
- Yield and servingAbout two and a half quarts before churning, enough for 12 to 16 small glasses. Serve in chilled punch cups or stemmed glasses immediately after churning, with the reserved lemon slices folded through.
Frozen punches of this kind were a fixture of the formal nineteenth-century dinner, served in a small glass partway through the meal as a pause before the roast — the best-known version being punch à la Romaine, made with rum and meringue. Port and brandy made it a heavier, darker ice than the citrus-and-rum Roman version. The word punch itself is usually traced to Hindi panch, five, for the five components of the original East India Company drink. Freezing was the pastry department's work, so anything churned in a freezer can — ice cream, water ice, or spiked punch — belonged to the confectioner.