Porcelain Monteith.
Punch became popular in New England just as it did in old England, in fact, wherever English-speaking sea rovers could tell of the new drink. In 1682 John Winthrop wrote of the sale of a punch bowl in Boston, and in 1686 John Dunton told of more than one noble bowl of punch in New England.
Every buffet of people of good station in prosperous times soon had a punch bowl. Every dinner was prefaced by a bowl of punch passed from hand to hand, while the liquor was drunk from the bowl. Double and “thribble” bowls of punch were served in taverns; these held two and three quarts each.
To show the amount of punch drunk at a minister’s ordination in New England in 1785, I will state that the eighty people attending in the morning had thirty bowls of punch before going to meeting; and the sixty-eight who had dinner disposed of forty-four bowls of punch, eighteen bottles of wine, eight bowls of brandy, and a quantity of cherry rum.
Punch was popular in Virginia, it was popular in New York, it was popular in Pennsylvania. William Black recorded in his diary in 1744 that in Philadelphia he was given cider and punch for lunch; rum and brandy before dinner; punch, Madeira, port, and sherry at dinner; punch and liqueurs with the ladies; and wine, spirit, and punch till bedtime; all in punch bowls big enough for a goose to swim in.
In 1757 S. M. of Boston, who was doubtless Samuel Mather, the son of Cotton Mather, sent to Sir Harry Frankland, the hero of the New England romance of Agnes Surriage, a box of lemons with these lines:—
“You know from Eastern India came
The skill of making punch as did the name.
And as the name consists of letters five,
By five ingredients is it kept alive.
To purest water sugar must be joined,
With these the grateful acid is combined.
Some any sours they get contented use,
But men of taste do that from Tagus choose.
When now these three are mixed with care
Then added be of spirit a small share.
And that you may the drink quite perfect see,
Atop the musky nut must grated be.”
Cincinnati Punch Bowl.
From the accounts that have come down to us, the “spirits a small share” of the Puritan Mather’s punch receipt was seldom adhered to in New England punches.