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Tokay Punch (Out of pounds of Tokay grapes) (II)
Out of 6 pounds of Tokay grapes select 1 pound to be put into the punch last. Now make a boiling syrup of 3 pounds of sugar and 1 quart of water and pour this over the remaining 5 pounds of grapes. When partly cold, rub it through a sieve, leaving skin and seeds behind, then add the juice of 2 oranges and 2 lemons and 1 quart of St. Julien claret, then strain and freeze. Before serving add 1 pint good brandy and an Italian meringue paste of 6 egg whites, colored a nice red, and drop in the remaining grapes.
A frozen fountain punch scaled for a crowd, built on the old Roman-punch model: a sweet fruit ice loosened at the last minute with spirits and a meringue. Two things decide whether it works — the syrup must be poured over the grapes while boiling hot, and the brandy and meringue go in only after freezing.
- What Tokay means hereNot Hungarian Tokaji wine but the Flame Tokay, a large red seeded table grape grown heavily in California when this book was written. Red Globe is the closest common stand-in; any firm red seeded grape works, since the skins and seeds are strained out anyway.
- The hot syrup is the extractionThree pounds of sugar to one quart of water is a heavy syrup, and pouring it boiling over five pounds of grapes splits the skins and pulls the color and juice out. Let it stand until only warm before rubbing it through a sieve, or you will lose flavor to steam and scorch your hands.
- St. Julien claretA red Bordeaux from the Saint-Julien commune on the Left Bank — dry, tannic, Cabernet-dominant. Any dry Médoc or a plain Cabernet blend serves; avoid anything oaky or sweet, as there is already three pounds of sugar in play.
- "Freeze" means a churned iceIn a 1900s fountain this went into a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt. A modern ice cream machine does the same job. With this much sugar and, later, alcohol, it will never set hard — expect a slush, which is the intended texture for a punch.
- Order of additionsThe brandy and the meringue are held back deliberately. A pint of spirit stirred in before churning would depress the freezing point further still (a quart of claret is already in the base) and make it much harder for the mixture to thicken.
- Italian meringueSix whites whipped while a sugar syrup cooked to about 240F is streamed in, then beaten until cool and stiff, tinted red. The hot syrup cooks the whites only partially, so use pasteurized whites if anyone at the table is elderly, pregnant, or immune-compromised.
- ColoringPeriod fountains used cochineal or aniline reds by the drop. A few drops of modern red gel color, or a spoonful of the strained grape syrup itself, gives the same effect.
- YieldRough estimate only: the base runs somewhere around a gallon to five quarts before the brandy and meringue, and more once they go in. Figure roughly twenty-five to thirty punch-cup servings.
Frozen punches like this one sat at the boundary between the confectioner's trade and the soda fountain, which is exactly where this book operates. The form descends from the nineteenth-century Roman punch — a wine-and-spirit ice lightened with meringue, served midway through a long formal dinner to clear the palate before the roast — and fountain men adapted it as a showpiece for hot weather and large orders. The grape itself dates the recipe: the Flame Tokay was a mainstay of the Lodi district in California and shipped east in quantity by rail in the late 1800s and early 1900s, cheap and dramatic-looking, which is why a soda man would build six pounds of it into a single bowl. The claret and pint of brandy are a reminder that fountain work and bar work were not yet legally separated; recipes of this kind largely vanish from American manuals after Prohibition.