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Claret Punch
Put into a punch bowl one cupful of granulated sugar, six lemons and two oranges sliced, a pineapple cut into dice, a cupful of Maraschino cherries, a gill of rum, a gill of Benedictine. They should stand at least an hour. At the end of that time put a block of ice into the bowl and pour over it two quarts of claret and a siphon of iced seltzer. Some persons find the same quantity of brandied raspberries or strawberries a pleasant addition.
A large-format party punch built on the standard nineteenth-century method: macerate fruit and sugar first, dilute and chill only at the moment of serving. It scales to a crowd and is easy to unbalance if the ice and seltzer go in early.
- A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. Two gills here in total, rum and Benedictine, against two quarts of wine.
- ClaretThe English trade name for red Bordeaux, and by 1900 a loose label for any dry red in that style. A medium-bodied Merlot- or Cabernet-based red works; avoid anything heavily oaked or high in alcohol, which will fight the Benedictine.
- The maceration is the pointThe hour of standing is what dissolves the sugar and draws juice and oils from the citrus peel and pineapple. Cut the lemons and oranges in rounds with the skin on, press the fruit down into the sugar, and stir once or twice. Shortening this step gives a punch that tastes of wine and sugar rather than fruit.
- A block of ice, not cubesA single large block melts slowly and keeps dilution under control across an evening. Freeze water in a loaf pan or plastic tub the day before. Cubes will water the bowl down within half an hour.
- A siphon of iced seltzerA charged seltzer bottle held roughly a quart. Use about a litre of well-chilled sparkling water, added last and stirred as little as possible.
- Maraschino cherriesIn 1900 these could still be cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur rather than the bright red dye-and-syrup confections that later dominated, though cheap imitations were already on the market by then. Look for dark Luxardo-style cherries; the syrup they come in is worth adding too.
- SweetnessA cupful of granulated sugar plus a cup of cherries is generous by current taste. Start with half to two-thirds of the sugar, taste after the wine goes in, and stir in more dissolved sugar if wanted.
- Yield and strengthA little over three quarts of liquid as measured, working up towards four as the block melts, or roughly twenty to twenty-five punch cups. It drinks lighter than it is; the wine plus the two gills of spirits, once the seltzer is in, sits somewhat below the strength of undiluted wine.
Punch reached England from the East India trade in the seventeenth century and by the Victorian era had split into dozens of regional and club variants, the claret cup among the most respectable of them. Claret punch belonged to the receptions, weddings and summer garden parties where a bowl could stand on a side table and serve itself, and its appearance in an American household manual of 1900 reflects how ordinary that arrangement still was in the years before Prohibition emptied the punch bowl for a generation. The Benedictine is a period marker: the herbal liqueur was commercialised in Normandy in the mid-nineteenth century and was fashionable in American bars and drawing rooms by the 1890s. The suggestion of brandied raspberries at the end points to a pantry habit now largely gone, in which summer fruit was put up in spirit specifically to be spooned into winter drinks and desserts.