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Fruit Punch IV
9 oranges 6 lemons 1 cup grated pineapple 1 cup raspberry syrup 1½ cups tea infusion 1¼ cups sugar 1 cup hot water 1 quart Apollinaris Mix juice of oranges and lemons with pineapple, raspberry syrup, and tea; then add a syrup made by boiling sugar and water fifteen minutes. Turn in punch-bowl over a large piece of ice. Chill thoroughly, and just before serving add Apollinaris.
A Victorian-style fruit punch built on a boiled sugar syrup and finished with sparkling mineral water. Nothing here is difficult, but several of the ingredients go by names that have fallen out of use.
- ApollinarisA naturally carbonated German mineral water, once sold everywhere as a mixer. Any dry sparkling mineral water or seltzer stands in; a quart is 4 cups. Add it at the last moment or the punch goes flat in the bowl.
- Tea infusionPlain brewed tea, made about as strong as you would drink it, then cooled. Do not oversteep it into bitterness.
- Raspberry syrupA sweetened fruit syrup, not modern pancake syrup or cordial concentrate. Bottled raspberry syrup sold for sodas and cocktails is the closest match; if you use a thinner unsweetened puree, cut the added sugar.
- Grated pineappleFresh pineapple grated on a coarse grater, pulp and juice together. Crushed canned pineapple works, though it is sweeter; drain off some of its packing syrup.
- The sugar syrupBoiling sugar and water fifteen minutes reduces it well past simple syrup toward a heavy syrup. Watch it rather than trusting the clock, and cool it before it meets the fruit juices.
- The iceOne large piece, as directed, rather than cubes. A single block from a loaf pan or bowl melts slowly and keeps the punch from watering down over an evening.
- YieldRoughly two and a half quarts once the mineral water goes in, which serves twelve to sixteen in small punch cups.
Punch of this kind was a common drink at the American afternoon reception, and cookbooks of the period often give several numbered variations so a hostess could choose by what was on hand. The mixture of tea, citrus, a fruit syrup and a boiled sugar syrup echoes the older spirituous punch with the spirits left out — a shape that let the punch bowl remain the centrepiece of a party without the liquor. Branded mineral waters like Apollinaris, imported and heavily advertised in the United States from the later nineteenth century, were a fashionable finish; naming the brand in a recipe was as ordinary then as calling for a particular soda now.