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Early American Cocktails Part 6
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Cocktail photo from www.esquire.comThis recipe is an excerpt from Jerry Thomas’ Bartenders Guide: How To Mix Drinks, 1862
Mississippi Punch
Mississippi Punch1 Wine-Glass of Brandy½ Wine-Glass of Jamaican Rum½ Wine-Glass of Bourbon Whisky½ Wine-Glass of Water1 ½ Tablespoon Powdered White Sugar¼ Large LemonDirections:Fill a tumbler with shaved ice. The ingredients must be well shaken, and to those who like their draughts “like linked sweetness long drawn out ”, let them use a glass tube or straw to sip the nectar through. Pour into a large bar glass. The top of this punch should be ornamented with small pieces of orange and berries (in season).
Early American Rum Cocktails - Part 6
When studying the history of a country, some scholars undoubtedly head to the libraries, to read and re-read manuscripts of yesteryear. I, on the other hand, prefer to start by exploring the culinary and mixological legacy of the bygone eras: I head to the bars and pubs!
Early colonial America was a constantly changing landscape. The recipes for their contemporary cookery and drinkery are a window into that time.
Join me as I journey through the best of what has survived, as I explore the drinks that forged and survived the growth of the American nation.
-Dr. Ron A. Ñejo
Early American Rum Cocktails #6: Mississippi Punch
(An excerpt from Jerry Thomas’ Bar tenders Guide: How To Mix Drinks, 1862)
Regarding Punch:
“To make punch of any sort in perfection, the ambrosial essence of the lemon must be extracted by rubbing lumps of sugar on the rind, which breaks the delicate little vessels that contain the essence, and at the same time absorbs it. This, and making the mixture sweet
and strong, using tea instead of water, and thoroughly amalgamating all the compounds, so that the taste of neither the bitter, the sweet, the spirit, nor the element, shall be perceptible one over the other, is the grans secret, only to be acquired by practice.
The precise portions of spirit and water, or even of the acidity and sweetness, can have no general rule, as scarcely two persons make punch alike.”
Mississippi Punch
1 Wine-Glass of Brandy
½ Wine-Glass of Jamaican Rum
½ Wine-Glass of Bourbon Whisky
½ Wine-Glass of Water
1 ½ Tablespoon Powdered White Sugar
¼ Large Lemon
Directions:
Fill a tumbler with shaved ice. The ingredients must be well shaken, and to those who like their draughts “like linked sweetness long drawn out ”, let them use a glass tube or straw to sip the nectar through. Pour into a large bar glass. The top of this punch should be ornamented with small pieces of orange and berries (in season).