Punch (35 page)

As many as possible of the primary sources I’ve drawn on are at least referred to by name and date. Here, though, are some suggestions for those who wish to read more deeply on some of the topics raised. For the early history of distillation, C. Anne Wilson’s
Water of Life
(2006) is, although somewhat too speculative in spots, nonetheless quite enlightening. R. J. Forbes’s 1948
Short History of the Art of Distillation
remains the most definitive work on the subject. Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown’s
Spirituous Journey
(two volumes, 2009 and 2010) has much of interest and has the advantage of accessibility. For other English drinkways, see A. D. Francis’s excellent
The Wine Trade
(1972) and Peter Haydon’s beer-centric
An Inebriated History of Britain
(2005).

For India and the East, any of the relevant journals, travel accounts and the like republished by the Hakluyt Society are well worth picking up, as indeed is any Hakluyt Society book no matter what part of the world it’s dealing with. A good general history of the English East India Company is John Keay’s 1991
The Honourable Company
; would that there were a similar one of the mighty VOC, the Dutch East India Company. The fabulous
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg
, by Giles Milton (1999), provides a riveting account of the contentious interaction between the two companies in the East. For Indian tippling, there is no better source than Satya Prakash Sangar’s thorough
Food and Drink in Mughal India
(1999).

As for sailors, A. J. Pack’s
Nelson’s Blood
is the standard—and highly readable—account of rum-drinking in the Royal Navy (third edition, 1995). No better insight into eighteenth-century naval life may be gained than from Tobias Smollett’s 1748
Roderick Random
.

Roderick Random
is also useful as a guide to London life at the time, as indeed are any of the novels of Smollett’s contemporaries. In fact, to truly understand Punch and its milieu, I can recommend no better course of reading than Fielding’s
Tom Jones
, Boswell’s
Life of Johnson
(not a novel, but it reads like one), Richardson’s
Clarissa
, I suppose (I wish I liked that one more, insightful as it may be), and
Tristram Shandy
, if only because everyone should read that one.

For the Regency years and the early Victorian ones, nothing captures the social whirl better than the chatty reminiscences of Lord William Pitt Lennox, who knew everyone when he was young and talked about them all in amusing detail when he wasn’t. Also most useful is John Timbs’s
Clubs and Club Life in London
(several editions between 1872 and 1908; Google Books offers full access to at least two). These may and should of course be supplemented with a whole mess of Thackeray and Dickens.

Finally, the colonies. When they were indeed colonies, Dr. Alexander Hamilton wandered through them all, or at least most of them, and supped Punch where he went. The record of his 1744 trip has been published as his
Itinerarium
. When they were no longer colonies—well, much of the sporting life that sprang up then has been covered in
Imbibe!
But no better picture of it can be found than that in the novels of Frank Forester.
The Warwick Woods
is particularly recommended.

SOURCES FOR RARE INGREDIENTS AND TOOLS

Fortunately, Punch-making uses far fewer exotic ingredients and obscure tools than making Cocktails. For the liquors, the best place to go is
DrinkUpNY.com
, which carries Batavia arrack and other such goodies. Spices and exotic sugars can be obtained from New York’s magnificent Kalustyan’s (
www.kalustyans.com
). For ambergris, however, you’ll have to send your treasure to New Zealand (
www.ambergris.co.nz
). The season for Seville oranges is short (December to February); when they’re in season, try
Melissas.com
. I understand that they will freeze well, although I can never hang on to them long enough to try it.

On to the gear. Ladles are a problem; flea markets are your best bet there. I also have yet to find a truly elegant modern nutmeg grater, but perfectly adequate Le Creuset earthenware bowls and jugs may be obtained from
Amazon.com
(look for the stoneware 4⅝-quart mixing bowl and the three-quart Sangria pitcher). Ra Chand juicers can also be sourced through Amazon but are widely available elsewhere, for cheaper. Libbey 8089 two-ounce Georgia sherry glasses, my favorite style of Punch glass, can be found through
Amazon.com
.

ORIGINAL TEXTS OF TRANSLATED RECIPES

For the completists.

From
Bowlen und Punsche fur den Feld- und Manover-gebrauch der Deutschen Armee,
1900

From P. C. Robert,
La grande cuisine simplifiée
, 1845

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I must acknowledge that sundry parts of this book have appeared, in altered form, in
Esquire
,
Saveur
,
The Malt Advocate
,
Bon Appétit
,
Wine & Spirits
, Slow Food USA’s
Snail
,
Mixology
and the late, lamented
Gourmet
. I am very grateful to them all.

With every book I write I seem to need more help. The list of people who assisted me materially or spiritually in the preparation of this volume is absurdly long—far longer than a Punch-drinking man can accurately remember. If I have omitted your name here, you have my sincerest apologies, as does everyone to whom I still owe an email.

The number of people who have offered moral support and practical advice, shared hard-won morsels of information, offered venues for me to muse about Punch or supplied the necessary C
₂
H
₅
OH is truly humbling. Here are some of them: Dayan Abeyaratne (arrack! cashew fenny!), Eric Alperin, Stephan Berg, Cary Berger, Jeff Berry, Jacques “Van Der Hum” Bezuidenhout, the ever-helpful Greg Boehm, Jared Brown, Tad “Joisey” Carducci, Fernando Castellon (our man in Lyons), Erick “Pac Man” Castro, Wayne Collins, Tony Conigliaro, Jason Crawley (and what a mistake it is to put those three together!), the ever-lovely Jill DeGroff, the indefatigable Philip “Mr. Genever” Duff, John T. Edge, H. Joseph “Thermometer” Ehrmann, Eric Ellestad, John Gertsen (thanks for the glassware, dude!), Ted Haigh, Robert Hess, the mysterious Allen Katz, Don Lee, Leonard Lopate (who is not averse to drinking a little Punch on the radio), Diego Loret de Mola, Lance Mayhew, Anistatia Miller, Rosalind Muggeridge of the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum (I want that bar!), Sean Muldoon and his shebeen full of sharks, Tal “Kopstoot” Nadari and all my good friends at Lucas Bols, Josey Packard, Linda Pellaccio of the Culinary Historians of New York, Jeff “Hennessexy” Pogash, Lis Riba (thanks for the Fish-House Punch recipe!), Debbie “the Rizz” Rizzo, Eric Seed, Tad “Old Tom” Seestedt, Daniel Shoemaker, Nick Strangeway, Lesley Townsend, Ann Tuennerman, Charles Vexenat, Charlotte Voissey, and the evil elf who keeps trying to get me to drink Fernet-Branca.

To the staffs of the New York Public Library, the British Library, the British Museum and New York University’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, thank you. Without you, history doesn’t get written. I should probably throw the staff of
BookFinder.com
in there, too.

Some poor souls have had to work with me while I was preoccupied with this project. To my partners in BAR, Dale “Marie” DeGroff, Doug “They’re Going Down” Frost, Steve “Buzz” Olson, Paul “the Sexiest Man in Showbiz” Pacult, and Andy “Did He Just Say That?” Seymour, thank you, brave men. And to Aisha Sharpe, Willy Shine, and Leo “Lemonator” DeGroff, thank you, you rock! I say the same to my sometime partner-in-crime, Simon Ford. And also to Steve Walkerwicz, Suzanne Freedman, Shawn Kelley, Lora Piazza and Leslie Pariseau of BarSmarts. And my poor editors—Ross McCammon, Lew Bryson, James Rodewald, Beth Kracklauer, Noah Rothbaum, Tara Q. Thomas, Zoe Singer and Heather John. I swear I’ll have it in in the morning. Okay, early afternoon. Would you believe end of the day? How many words again?

Many thanks are also due to the Associate Members of the North Gowanus Institute for Cranial Distempers. In ascending/ descending alphabetical order, they are: Hannah Clark, Patrick Watson, Melissa Clark, Mike Sweeney, Doug Dibbern, Cynthia Sweeney, Cheryl Donegan, Katherine Schulten, Mike Dulchin, Audrey Saunders, Sherwin Dunner, Bryony Romer, Linden Elstran, Julie Reiner, Susan Fedoroff, Michelle Pravda, St. John Frizzell, Zack Pelaccio, Tony Gerber, Garrett Oliver, Daniel Gercke, Nick Noyes, Vince Giordano, Lynn Nottage, Kenneth “Cagey” Goldsmith, Jessica Monaco, Paul “My Face Is a Mirror” Gustings, Valerie Meehan, Alex Halberstadt, Peter Meehan, Joltin’ John Hodgman, Jim Meehan, Ana Jovancicevic, Laura McMillian, Shawn Kelley (Shawn’s so nice she gets thanked twice), Chris McMillian, Steve Kelley, Joshua Mack, and the Piss-Artist Formerly Known as Gary Regan.

Janis Donnaud, my agent, is simply great. Thank you.

Marian Lizzi, my editor, somehow manages to stay funny and nice despite sometimes I am quite sure wanting to throttle me. Also, she’s a hell of an editor. Thank you.

This project has caused my wife, Karen, and my daughter, Marina, to have to put up with more absence, preoccupation and stress-induced personality disorder than anyone should, especially people as sweet as they are. Here, where I need them the most, words fail me. Thank you.

Finally, I’d like to thank Kathie Lee for not wrecking my punch ladle.

INDEX

Page numbers in
italics
represent illustrations.

Acton, Eliza

Adams, John

Addams, Robert

Addison, Joseph

Adventures of Jonathan Wild, The
(Fielding)

Akbar the Great

Alcohol

in aqua vitae

class and

measurement of

proof and

Aldworth, Henry

Alexander the Great

Allchin, F. Raymond

Allen, Grant

Allingham, William

Ambergris

American Fancy Punches

Boston Club Punch

Chatham Artillery Punch-Original

Daniel Webster’s Punch

Frank Forester’s Punch

Light Guard Punch

Philadelphia Fish-House Punch

Quoit Club Punch

USS
Richmond
Punch

Yale College Punch

American whiskey

Apidius Redivivus
(Kitchiner)

Aqua vitae (“water of life”)

alcohol in

aqua ardens
as

early recipe for

in England

fortitude and

in Punch

sailors and

souring and

Aqua Vitae House

Arbuthnot

Arnold, Edward

Arrack.
See also
Batavia arrack

importation of

Philippine palm arrack

Arrack Punches

in America

Bombay Presidency Punch

class and

Cozzens’s Arrack Punch

importation of

Meriton Latroon’s Bantam Punch

ODoherty’s Arrack Punch

popularity of

price of

Punschglühbowle

United Service Punch

Ashley, James

Austin, Henry

Australia, rum from

Avery, Captain

Axton, W. F.

Bacchinalia Coelestia: A Poem in Praise of Punch
(Radcliffe)

BAR.
See
Beverage Alcohol Resource

Barbados

BarSmarts

Bartender’s Gin Compendium
(Regan)

Bar-Tenders Guide
(Thomas)

Bartender’s Manual
(Johnson, H.)

Batavia arrack

Batavia arrack van Oosten

Batters, Christopher

Beer

souring of

Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
(Unger)

Behn, Aphra

Bel-Man of London, The
(Dekker)

Benét, Stephen Vincent

Bennett, James Gordon Jr.

Berkeley, George

Bernier, François

Beverage Alcohol Resource (BAR)

Bimbo Punch

Bird, Thomas

Black, William

Book of Snobs
(Thackeray)

Boswell, James

Bowman, James

Braggott

Brandy

Brandy and Rum Punches