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Roman Punch
French Brandy, 4 ounces; Jamaica Rum, 4 ounces; Extract Vanilla, 2 drams; Acid, 2 drams. Plain syrup to make 1 gallon.
This is a fountain syrup, not a finished drink: the whole gallon is a flavoring base to be drawn an ounce or so at a time into a glass of carbonated water. Read the quantities in that light before the brandy and rum alarm you.
- Drams and ouncesThese are fluid measures. A fluid dram is 1/8 fluid ounce, about 3.7 mL, so 2 drams is roughly 1 1/2 teaspoons. The 4 ounces of each spirit are fluid ounces, or 1/2 cup.
- What "Acid" meansSoda books of the period generally use "acid" as shorthand for a standing solution of citric or tartaric acid kept at the fountain; the strength varies from book to book. Two drams of dry crystals would be far sharper than intended; if you are working from crystals, start with a small fraction and taste.
- Plain syrupFountain "plain" or "simple" syrup was heavier than a bar syrup today, closer to a saturated syrup, and formulas differ from book to book. That density is what keeps the syrup from fermenting and what lets a single ounce flavor a full glass.
- Mixing orderCombine the brandy, rum, vanilla extract and acid solution first, then stir the mixture into the finished, cooled syrup. Adding alcohol and extract to hot syrup drives off most of what you are paying for.
- Alcohol contentEight fluid ounces of spirits in 128 makes a syrup of roughly 3 percent alcohol by volume, and a 1-ounce draw into a glass leaves a trace. It flavors rather than fortifies, which is exactly how these fountain "punches" were sold.
- ServingDraw 1 to 1 1/2 ounces of syrup into a 10- or 12-ounce glass, fill with carbonated water under coarse stream, and stir once. Yield is roughly 85 to 128 drinks per gallon. A slice of lemon and shaved ice bring it closer to the dish it is named for.
- KeepingStore in glass, cool and dark. A syrup this dense with acid and spirit in it holds for months, but vanilla and rum both fade; make a quart rather than a gallon unless you are pouring volume.
Roman punch began life as a table course, not a soda: a semi-frozen rum-and-brandy punch, usually lemon-flavored and lightened with meringue, served in the middle of a long nineteenth-century dinner to clear the palate between roast and game. It appears on state and hotel menus through the middle and later 1800s, and is often said to have been the loophole by which spirits reached the table in temperance-minded households, since it arrived as an ice rather than a glass. Soda dispensers later took up the name, translating the flavor -- rum, brandy, vanilla, a bite of acid -- into a syrup that could be drawn all day at the counter. That the fountain version keeps real spirits is a reminder that American soda water and American drinking were not yet strangers.