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Currant Punch
Currant jelly is the main ingredient of this drink. Boil together for 5 minutes a cupful of sugar and 3 quarts of water. Remove from the fire and while the syrup is still hot dissolve in it 2½ pint glasses of currant jelly. Add 3 lemons and 3 oranges, sliced very thin. Then set on ice until chilled and serve in glasses partly filled with crushed ice.
A fountain punch built on a pantry staple: the sweetness and body come almost entirely from currant jelly, not from the sugar syrup. Two details decide whether it works — dissolving the jelly while the syrup is still hot, and pulling the citrus slices before they turn the batch bitter.
- "2½ pint glasses of currant jelly""2½ pint glasses of currant jelly" -- most likely two and a half pints by measure, i.e. about 5 cups. Commercial jars today run about 10-12 oz, so allow three to four of them, bearing in mind that jar labels give weight rather than volume.
- Dissolve off the heat, but hotWhisk the jelly into the syrup the moment it comes off the burner. Cold syrup leaves stubborn gelled lumps, and returning it to a boil breaks down the pectin set and can dull the fresh currant flavor.
- StrainEven well whisked, jelly can leave undissolved gelled specks. Pour the hot base through a fine sieve before adding the fruit.
- The citrus is an infusion, not a garnishVery thin slices give up their oils quickly. An hour or two on ice is plenty; left overnight, the pith turns the whole punch bitter. Lift the slices out before serving and use fresh ones in the glass.
- The syrup is deliberately thinOne cup of sugar to three quarts of water is almost nothing; the jelly carries the sugar. Taste after the jelly is in and before chilling and adjust if needed.
- No alcoholPunches in fountain and dispensing books of this kind are generally nonalcoholic fruit drinks. Nothing appears to have been omitted.
- YieldAbout a gallon once the jelly is in, which is sixteen to twenty glasses over ice. Halve it easily for a household batch.
- ServingCrushed ice, as the recipe specifies, rather than cubes. Keep the base cold and pour to order rather than letting a full bowl melt down.
Soda-fountain manuals like this one existed to turn a druggist's counter into a profitable drinks business, and their punches lean hard on shelf-stable syrups, extracts and jellies -- things a dispenser could keep on hand year-round rather than fresh fruit that spoiled. Currant jelly suited the purpose: red currants are high in pectin and acid and set firmly with little help, jelly kept well, and a jelly base gave a fountain punch color, tartness and a faint body that plain syrup could not. Currants were more common in American gardens then than now; cultivation dropped off in the early twentieth century after Ribes bushes were identified as an alternate host of white pine blister rust and state and federal restrictions on planting them followed, which is one reason currant flavor reads as old-fashioned to American palates while remaining familiar in Britain and northern Europe.