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Ginger Punch
1 quart cold water 1 cup sugar ½ lb. Canton ginger ½ cup orange juice 1/2 cup lemon juice Chop ginger, add to water and sugar, boil fifteen minutes; add fruit juice, cool, strain, and dilute with crushed ice.
A ginger syrup thinned with citrus and ice, meant for a punch bowl rather than a glass. The proportions are aggressive by modern taste, and the printed text carries a stray line.
- The stray measurementsThe trailing "1 cup water 2 cups sugar" does not belong to the method as printed; it is most likely the opening of the next recipe on the page, carried over in the reprint. Ignore it; the punch needs only the quart of water and cup of sugar listed at the top.
- Canton gingerThis is ginger root preserved in heavy syrup, sold in stoneware jars from Canton (Guangzhou) and once a standard grocery item. Modern crystallized or stem ginger in syrup is the closest equivalent.
- Scale the ginger downA pound and a half of sweetened ginger to a quart of water gives a syrup that is fiercely hot and very sweet. Half a pound produces a punch most people will drink willingly, and you can push it up from there.
- The fifteen-minute boilThis is the hinge. The long boil is what pulls heat and flavor out of the preserved root, so do not shorten it, but add the orange and lemon juice only after the pan is off the heat. Boiled citrus juice turns flat and slightly bitter.
- Strain properlyCool first, then strain through a fine sieve or a double layer of cheesecloth. The chopped ginger will have shed fibers that are unpleasant in the glass; the drained pieces themselves are worth saving for garnish.
- "Dilute with crushed ice"The ice is the water in this drink. Expect the finished syrup to taste too strong on its own; fill the bowl or glasses with crushed ice and pour over, then let it sit a few minutes and taste again.
- YieldRoughly six cups of concentrated syrup before ice, enough for a dozen or so small cups once diluted. Best made no more than a day or two ahead and kept refrigerated, since the fresh citrus fades.
Ginger punch belongs to the temperance side of the American punch bowl, one of a family of iced, fruit-and-syrup drinks that filled the same social role as spirituous punch at church suppers, receptions and afternoon teas. Its distinguishing ingredient is Canton ginger, preserved young ginger shipped in syrup from southern China, which reached American grocers in quantity through the nineteenth-century tea and China trade and was familiar enough that a recipe could call for a pound and a half without explanation. The prominence of these bowl drinks says something about the period: sugar and ice had both become cheap and reliable, and a hostess could set out something cold and elaborate without touching alcohol.