Punch. The word inspires images of frat parties, freshers week, cheap 18-30 holidays to Tenne’grief and all things, sweet, fruity, sickly and above all else – ‘punchy’. The story of the ‘flowing bowl’ however, couldn’t be more different. Punch has played both the fuel and peace pipe to war. It has inspired Dickens, converted voters, passed legislation, kept nations warm in winter, defined Christmas and ultimately given birth to our modern cocktail.

Origins of Punch

Ponche de Verano, modern punch - c/o Courvoisier.com

[Image: Ponche de Verano, modern punch – c/o Courvoisier.com]

To begin with – punch is old, really old. While the word cocktail can be found in use around the late 18th century, the earliest discovered use of the word punch, dates back to 1632. To put this into context; this same year construction began on the Taj Mahal, pilgrims had yet to settle in America, St Paul’s Cathedral in London was still being built and Galileo is called into Inquisition for his belief that the sun lies in the heart of the universe and not the Earth. For our story however, it’s the foundation of a young merchant conglomerate in the year 1600 which influences the evolution of the drink we now identify as punch.

It was spice and not gold, which drove the dreams of men in the 17th century. A time when trade control over the common nutmeg would influence four wars, the ownership of New York and global colonisation. At its peak, nutmeg bought at its source could be sold back in Europe at an impressive mark up of 60,000 times its purchase value with cloves, mace and pepper, not far behind. Thanks to pioneers of navigation like Bartolomeu Dias , Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, the route to the spice islands was well paved and any merchant who could successfully return from the East Indies (South East Asia) with a fully laden ship of spice, would quite simply be set for life. To ensure their place within this new spice race, England established a monopoly founded from a collective of ranking merchants to compete against the emerging powers of the Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese. This group was called the East India Company (a.k.a. The Company).

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[Image: Entitled “An Interesting scene onboard an East Indiaman, showing the Effects of a Heavy Lurch, after dinner” by George Cruikshank c.1818]

Over the next 90 years, The Company would fight for dominion in both the East and West Indies (Caribbean) evolving a Western taste for liquor, war, spice and the thing that linked them all – punch.

It’s of common belief that the etymology of the word ‘punch’ can be found in old Hindustani paanstch meaning ‘ five‘, implying a large beverage concocted from five key elements – sweet, sour, alcohol, water and spice. A theory well documented by a young physician named John Fryer when visiting a Company factory in India in 1676, “…[sic] at Nerule [outside Goa, India] is made the best Arach [arrack] with which the English on this coast make that enervating Liquor called Paunch (which is Indostan for Five) from Five Ingredients”.

And again somewhat poetically in 1732 by political satirist Bernard Mandeville;

“I would compare the Body Politick [sic] to a Bowl of Punch.
Avarice should be the Souring and Prodigality the Sweetning of it.
The Water I would call the Ignorance, Folly and Credulity of the floating insipid Multitude
While Wisdom, Honour, Fortitude and the rest of the sublime Qualities of Men… should be an Equivalent to Brandy.
- The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. 1, 1732

While Mandeville may have omitted the fifth element of spice, he makes a point of brandy representing all things good in man while diluting it with water or adding citrus and sugar, is an act of folly, ignorance and a greedy waste. Punch it seems was not for everyone. With no comfort for the common sailor on global voyages wracked with disease, malnutrition, unseasonal storms, hostile natives and mutinous crew – punch was definitely for the common sailor.

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[image: Sailors sharing both punch and wenches. Taken from “Grog on Board” by Thomas Rowlandson, 1789 – c/o Wiki Commons]

Despite so many references crediting early English merchant sailors for inventing punch from the ingredients easily obtained on their Indian odysseys (arrack, spice, sugar, citrus), the sub-Asian continent had existed as a global trading hub millennia before any Western interaction. As such, there is a strong argument that punch may have been adopted by English merchantmen rather than directly invented. A brief look at India’s old trading neighbors reveals some compelling rivalry.

Ancient Persia also have a similar word for ‘five’ written panj. Having traded directly with India since the Bronze Age and both empires well documented in consuming a drink called ‘arrack‘ (in its many spellings), it’s not a stretch that they too may have influenced the popularity of the earliest punch bowl. Even the ancient Greeks had a drink composed of five elements. Circa 210, on the third day of the Festival of Skira, Athenians held a race in which young men ran with a grape laden vine-branch called an oschus between temples of worship. The winner received a large cup filled with a mixed drink called pentaplous meaning “five-fold” (πέντε). Therein was held a beverage of five ingredients, wine, honey, cheese, flour and oil. Odd numbers have always been considered lucky throughout Greek mythology as mentioned in the old Greek proverb, “Drink waters three or five; but never four” implying the rule of Bacchus when exacting mixing ratios between wine and water.

Regardless, punch in our modern interpretation sees first English print in a letter written between a Man-at-Arms from The Company and his ‘factor’ in 1632; “I hop [sic] you keep good house together and drincke punch by no allowanc”.

Naval Officers and a Bowl of Punch by Thomas Rowlandson c.1790 - c/o Wiki Commons

[Image: Naval Officers and a Bowl of Punch by Thomas Rowlandson c.1790 – c/o Wiki Commons]

The earliest discovered recipe of a punch was recorded by a young German adventurer named Johan Albrecht de Mandelslo when visiting the English East India Company’s factory in Surat, India in 1638. The recipe was written as containing, “aqua vitae, rosewater, citrus juice and sugar“. Water is often omitted in early recipes as it was expected as a mixer into any spirituous liquor, the majority of which were rough-as-guts and overproof. Eleven years later, French adventurer François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz would visit the same factory and record the popular drink called bolleponge as “a drink used by the English in India containing sugar, lemon juice, eau-de-vie, mace and toasted biscuit”. In 1653, the Oxford English Dictionary would further define bolleponge as having derived from ‘bowl of punch’. Unsurprisingly with so many competing nationalities in the Indies at the time and such wide spread illiteracy, further references have also recorded the drink as a bolle-ponjis, paleponts, palepunzen, palapuntz and follepons to name a few. Regardless of its many early pseudonym’s, all recipe’s called for the use of citrus in balance of the sweet and strong, an ingredient which despite so many sailors from different nationalities drinking it, would not be recognised as a cure for scurvy for another 130 years.

With so many sailors returning from Eastern voyages with little of highlight but the memories of drinking punch, it’s unsurprising that the docks and ports of Europe’s biggest seafaring harbours play host to the first landing of punch into Western society. By which time the flowing bowl had become as synonymous with sailors as weevils, wenches and dysentery.

Punch in England

Old delft wine bottle for serving 'Sack' dated 1642 - c/o Berry Brother & Rudd cellars

[Image: Old Delft wine bottle for serving ‘Sack’ dated 1642 – c/o Berry Brother & Rudd cellars]

By the mid 17th century, punch had spread out of the London docks and into mainstream society. In a world predating electricity or the gas heater, winters were terminally cold, especially in 1650 when the Thames river froze over completely and snow remained on the ground for three consecutive months. Offering its own form of internal heating, many punch recipes evolved to help stave off the 17th century winter…or at least make an effort to do so.

Brandy, sweet wine, whole egg, cream and a crack of nutmeg (if you could afford it) altered your classic five ingredients into a punch referred to as a Fillip (or Flip). There was also the Jorum, Phlegm-Cutter, Fog-Driver, Dogs Nose, Ebulum, Brick Wall, Bastard, Canary and the two Victorian classics, Negus and Bishop. All of which while substituting different ingredients, used a base of sweet wine referred to as sack. Believed to derive from the Spanish word seco meaning ‘dry’, sack was predominantly a mix of sweet Madeira wine and dry young port from which a punch was then built on top.

Inscribed, 'Portrait of James Ashley of London Punch House on Ludgate Hill 1731, First reduced the price of punch & raised its reputation.'

[Image: Inscribed, ‘Portrait of James Ashley of London Punch House on Ludgate Hill 1731, First reduced the price of punch & raised its reputation.’]

By the 18th century, the spit-n’-sawdust tavern of old had given way to the more learned environment of the coffee house where punch found a new home in the middle classes. One popular establishment was the aptly named London Coffee and Punch House located on Ludgate Hill near St Paul’s Cathedral. As described in The Daily Post-Boy in 1731, one could find “..the finest and best old Arrack, [sic] Rum, and French Brandy is made into Punch”.

Opened by an ex cheese wholesaler named James Ashley, The London Coffee and Punch House became the local for many famous artists, politicians and poets of the time. Even if one had never visited the venue, passersby on Ludgate Hill Street would recognise the three iron punch bowls on ornate openwork pedestals flanking a door written with the confident words;

“Pro Bono Publico, James Ashley 1731. First reduced the price of punch, raised its reputation, and brought it into, universal esteem”.

Most interesting however is reference to a drink simply referred to as a sneaker, tiff or rub. These single-person serves were advertised as being mixed to order or as stated by Ashley himself, “Gentlemen may have it soon made as a gill of wine can be drawn”. By many modern definitions this serve would be branded as a ‘cocktail’ and more than half a century before we’d find the word first in print. Whoever was the first to commercially sell single servings of mixed liquor (bitters or not), Ashley represents the cultural transition from large, socially shared bowls of punch, into single swiftly mixed serves designed for the individual. A social transition from punch into cocktail. A movement which while started in England, would only fully take place on a distant colonial island 70 years later.

English Monteith Punch Bowl, pewter circa 1725–75

[Image: English Monteith Punch Bowl, pewter circa 1725–75]

Along with the many changes made to the English drinking mentality during the coffee house era, society also created an exceptionally elegant form of drinking punch known by the name of the Monteith Bowl. Reputedly named for a man of fashion who was known for wearing a scalloped coat from which the bowls equally scalloped rim resembles. This special edge allowed for the vessel to double as a chiller for glasses which would hang upside down in the cool (or hot) liquid. In more ornate versions the entire top section could be removed with glasses attached to easily refill the bowl with punch or iced water. Today the finest of these vessels can be found at international auction houses under hammer for tens of thousands of pounds. Little is known about the man Monteith, yet as stated in The Art of Cookery by William King in 1708 “New things produce new words and thus Monteith, Has [sic] by one vessel saved his name from death”.

by the mid 18th century, punch had well and truly arrived and everyone was drinking it. And with a young English colony soon to declare its American independence, punch would also find a new home in a new world and the inspiration for a drink known as the cock-tail.

[Read: A History of Punch - Part 2: Quakers Fishing and Smoking Bishops]

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The post A History of Punch – Part 1: Sailors, Sack and the Number Five appeared first on Drinking Cup.