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Champagne Punch, Proctor
Place in a two-gallon punch bowl with sufficient ice four large spoonfuls powdered sugar, juice of six oranges, a half pint maraschino, pint each cold English Breakfast tea and brandy, three bottles plain soda and six quarts dry champagne. Stir well with ladle, ornament with sliced pineapple and oranges and serve in champagne glasses.
A hotel-scale punch from the era when a party bowl was filled once and left to dilute slowly. Nothing here is difficult; the work is in the arithmetic and the ice.
- It will not fit the bowlSix quarts of champagne alone is a gallon and a half, and the juice, spirits, tea and soda add roughly another half-gallon before any ice. Either use a three- to four-gallon bowl or halve everything.
- YieldAs written this is roughly two gallons of liquid, or about 65 to 70 servings in the small 4-oz champagne glasses of the period. Modern 6-oz flutes will cut that to around 45.
- Maraschino means the liqueurA half pint of clear maraschino liqueur — Luxardo or similar, made from marasca cherries — not the red syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. The two are unrelated in flavour and sweetness.
- "Four large spoonfuls"Genuinely ambiguous; a "large spoonful" is generally taken to mean something like a tablespoon, which gives very little sugar for this volume. Taste after the orange juice goes in and adjust, since dry champagne and citrus will want more.
- Soda bottlesBottle sizes varied; small soda bottles of the period ran roughly 6 to 10 fluid ounces, so three bottles may amount to only about a pint and a half -- a splash for lift rather than a major dilutant. Use unflavoured club soda or seltzer.
- The teaA pint of cold English Breakfast, brewed strong and chilled completely. Tea is the tannic backbone of a classic punch; warm tea will flatten the champagne on contact.
- IceUse one large block or a few very large chunks rather than cubes. Small ice melts fast at this volume and the punch is thin within the hour.
- Order of assemblySugar, juice, maraschino, tea and brandy first, stirred until the sugar dissolves; soda and champagne last, poured down the side of the bowl and stirred once. Vigorous stirring after the champagne goes in kills the bead.
- StrengthBrandy and maraschino in a base of dry champagne make a drink that is far stronger than the fruit and small glasses suggest. Plan accordingly.
Punch reached Britain through East India Company trade, and the name is often said to derive from the Sanskrit and Hindi word for five, for the five components of the original — spirit, sugar, citrus, water and spice, though the etymology is not settled. Tea came to stand in for the water in many 18th- and 19th-century recipes, though the practice varied; that pint of English Breakfast is the oldest thing in this bowl. Filippini's book attributes numerous dishes and drinks to individuals in this way, a habit carried over from the Delmonico's kitchens; who Proctor was is not recorded in the text.