The Wall Street Journal-20080216-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Food - Drink -- How-s Your Drink- An Icy Treat for Adults Only
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Food & Drink -- How's Your Drink? An Icy Treat for Adults Only
Full Text (1015 words)William Maxwell Evarts was one of the most powerful lawyer- politicians of the 19th century. Lead counsel for Andrew Johnson, Evarts fought off the president's impeachment and soon found himself attorney general. Years later, in the disputed election of 1876, he lawyered Rutherford B. Hayes into the White House and was promptly named secretary of state. Yet Evarts wasn't powerful enough to get a drink at a state dinner. First Lady, and temperance advocate, "Lemonade" Lucy Hayes declared the White House would be dry. One night, leaving a presidential dinner, Evarts ran into a friend who asked him how the evening had gone: "Excellently," he said. "The water flowed like champagne."
Journalist Benjamin Perley Poore recounted in his "Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis" that before the Hayeses came to town, "punch abounded everywhere, and the bibulous found Washington a rosy place." The bibulous were not to be denied, even by Lemonade Lucy, and came up with a way to hide the alcohol -- a spiked sherbet called Roman Punch. At White House functions, Poore recalled, the stewards served oranges that proved to be strangely popular with the guests. "Waiters were kept busy replenishing salvers upon which the tropical fruit lay . . . concealed within the oranges was a delicious frozen punch, a large ingredient of which was strong old Santa Croix rum."
The caterer "took compassion on the infirmity of our nature," Massachusetts Sen. George Frisbie Hoar wrote in his autobiography. Midway in each state dinner, frozen orange skins were served containing a "sherbet into which as much rum was crowded as it could contain without being altogether liquid." The course -- eaten with a spoon -- came to be known by the thirsty as "the Life-Saving Station."
Once word was out, the president put the best face he could on it: "The joke of the Roman punch oranges was not on us but on the drinking people," Hayes scribbled in his diary, asserting that the sherbet had not contained a single drop of alcohol. "My orders were to flavor them rather strongly with the same flavor that is found in Jamaica rum." I don't buy it -- it would take a teetotaler to believe that the avid drinkers of the 19th century couldn't tell the difference.
Roman Punch had been a fixture at the White House before Lemonade Lucy arrived, and had first earned a reputation as a high-society quaff in London. According to William Jesse's 1844 "Life of George Brummell, Esq.," the old Beau was in the habit of putting away copious quantities of "Roman punch, into the mysteries of which it has been asserted that he initiated the Prince Regent." Thus, when First Lady Julia Grant tried to fancify presidential entertaining by adopting the multicourse French style of dining, frozen punch was a natural choice as the interlude between entrees and game. Roman Punch would continue to be a centerpiece of official presidential entertaining for administrations to come. At Benjamin Harrison's 1889 inaugural ball, the crowd gobbled up some 200 gallons of the stuff.
Among the requirements for a big, formal dinner in "Age of Innocence" New York were a hired chef and gilt-edged menu cards. But "the Roman punch made all the difference," Edith Wharton wrote in her great novel of high society. It wasn't that the punch was in and of itself so grand, but that it had "manifold implications" that extended well beyond the bill of fare -- "it signified either canvas-backs or terrapin, two soups, a hot and a cold sweet, full decolletage with short sleeves, and guests of a proportionate importance."
To be unfamiliar with the icy treat was the mark of a bumpkin. Elizabeth Fries Ellet, in her 1869 book about Washington society, "The Court Circles of the Republic," tells of a "rustic pair invited by some accident" to a big bash during the administration of Andrew Jackson: "A tall, strapping Kentuckian had taken a saucer of frozen Roman punch, which he had never tasted before." He turned to his date and exclaimed, "I swar, Miss Jane, this beats julep all to nothing; who ever thought of chawing rum!"
Roman Punch was still going strong at one extravagant dinner given at a hotel in New York in the early years of the 20th century. According to the 1907 "Steward's Handbook," "Roman punch was served in oranges hanging on the natural trees, the pulp of the fruit having been deftly removed so that the favored guests could pick their own." But come the Jazz Age, the slushy drink was dismissed as an affectation of those trying just a bit too hard. "A dinner interlarded with a row of extra entrees, Roman punch, and hot dessert," Emily Post wrote in her original 1922 etiquette manual, "is unknown except at a public dinner, or in the dining-room of a parvenu."
Roman Punch is so thoroughly forgotten now that the nouveau-riche taint no longer applies. And it is easy to prepare. Old recipes involve making the lemon sherbet from scratch, but it is perfectly acceptable to buy a quart of lemon ice (though you might want to avoid sorbet that have an overly creamy texture). Put the lemon ice in a blender, along with four ounces (or more, to taste) of rum, the same of brandy, and an ounce of orange curacao, Cointreau, or maraschino liqueur. Blend it to a slushy consistency and put it in the freezer overnight. Just before serving, add about half a pint of champagne, stirring the fizz in gently by hand. It was once common to serve Roman Punch in fancy flower-shaped bowls sculpted of ice. But it's more fun to present it in the frozen shell of an orange, perfect for making rum fit for chawing.
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Roman Punch (Serves eight)
1 quart lemon ice
4-6 oz rum
4-6 oz brandy
1 oz orange curacao or maraschino liqueur
8 oz champagne
-- Blend all but champagne and freeze overnight. Just before serving, gently mix champagne into the spiked sherbet and serve in hollowed-out orange skins.
