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Punch Au Kirsch
Prepare a lemon water ice adding when in the freezer two and a half tablespoons Swiss kirsch, mix with the spatula and serve in six sherbet glasses.
A one-line recipe that assumes you already know how to make a lemon water ice, and that your freezer is a hand-cranked churn packed in salt and ice. Two details matter: the amount of spirit, and when it goes in.
- "In the freezer" means the churnIn this period the freezer was the crank machine with a paddle, not a cold cabinet. Read the instruction as "when the ice has partly set in the machine" and add the kirsch in the last two or three minutes of churning with a modern ice cream maker.
- The lemon water iceA workable base is 2 cups water, 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup strained lemon juice, plus a strip of zest steeped in the hot syrup and removed. Chill thoroughly before churning; a warm syrup makes it hard to reach the right texture.
- Add the spirit lateAlcohol depresses the freezing point, so spirit stirred in at the start softens the set; adding it once the ice has taken keeps the texture firmer. Two and a half tablespoons in this quantity is a modest measure — enough to perfume without slackening the ice, and there is no reason to increase it.
- KirschA clear, unsweetened cherry brandy distilled from whole fruit, dry rather than syrupy. Do not substitute cherry liqueur or maraschino, both of which are sweet and will throw the balance; if you cannot find kirsch, use a dry eau-de-vie.
- The spatulaThe flat wooden paddle used to work an ice in its can. A stiff silicone spatula does the same job: fold rather than beat, to keep the texture smooth.
- Serve at onceThis is meant to go to table soft, closer to a slush than a scoop. If it has been held in a deep freezer, let it stand ten minutes and stir it smooth.
- YieldSix sherbet glasses. Sherbet glasses of the period were small, so this is a short course rather than a dessert portion.
A "punch" in a formal menu of this period was not a bowl of drink but a course: a half-frozen, lightly spirited ice served between courses to reset the palate, the best-known example being punch à la romaine. That is presumably why this appears as a spare, technical instruction rather than a full recipe. Kirsch is generally associated with the cherry-growing districts of Switzerland, Alsace and the German Black Forest. The small measure of alcohol is characteristic: these ices were flavoured, not fortified, and were served in stemmed glasses.