In 1862 , Jerry Thomas published The Bartender ’s Guide , the first leger of cocktail formula . Every week , we tackle one of his recipes . call on out they did thing differently back then .
For our first endeavour at a Thomas pilot , we took on recipe 27 , a delight he calls “ Punch Jelly . ” It ’s essentially a 19th - century edition of the Jell - O shooter . Except , instead of using gelatin like a genteel human , the recipe shout out for mica , aka fish bladders . More on that in a jiff .
Punch Jelly is a modification of formula 26 , “ Punch à la Ford , ” a beautiful , small bauble featuring lemons , simoleons , water , Cognac and rum named for “ the late General Ford , who for many yr was the command engineer at Dover , kept a most hospitable board , and used to make punch on a big scale leaf . ” firmly to go incorrect with that frame-up , we thought . This was before we added the Pisces bladders .
Thomas says to skin three XII Citrus limon ( ! ) and place the peels in an “ earthen vas . ” After trying for a full 10 seconds to source such a vessel , we decided that crude oil comes from the world and plastic get from rude oil colour , and thus , via the transitive property , our outsize plastic Cambro tub was indeed an earthen vessel . We are nothing if not bona fide here at the Jerry Thomas Experiment .
Next the formula instruct us to append two pounds of lucre to the peels to extract their essential oil . Today the resulting miracle goo is called oleo genus Saccharum ( thanks to David Wondrich ’s near unmarried - handed revival of the stuff and nonsense in his fabled book , Punch ) . It ’s a middling miraculous process , during which , over the course of several minute ( ours take three ) , the sugar pulls the oil from the peel and dissolve itself into a sort of primeval lemon yellow ooze .
When it come up to stirring up the lemon yellow peels , Thomas calls for the exercise of “ an oar shaped part of Ellen Price Wood . ” After an ill - fated attempt to encourage an oar from a run fisherman , we reread the passage and empty the piece of wood only needed to be oar - mold . We then scour lower Manhattan ’s eatery supply stores until we found the biggest , most maritime - looking wooden spoonful that we could discover .
The next instruction was to juice the lemons , reserve the juice , then pour boiling urine over the spent lemon stubble and lease them soak . According to Thomas , when done decent , ” the pips were enveloped in thick mucilage , full of flavor . ” Though this sounds disgusting , it smell pleasant-tasting .
After strain the brine into a pipe bowl , we fade away the oleo genus Saccharum into it , somewhat stressed about Thomas ’s monition to take great aid not to “ render the lemonade too weak . ” Apparently , the late General Ford was clear that his punch be “ rich of fruit , and of plenty of fragrance . ” The last thing we needed at this pointedness was to see red the dead .
With our lemonade “ sherbet ” ( as Thomas called it ) tasting high of yield , we were quick to add the booze . The formula given in the book calls for a pint of brandy and a pint of rum to every three quarts of sherbet . With the entire bulk of our lemonade just a hair over three quarts , we added a bit more than a pint of each look , then fuse it properly with our trusty oar / spoon / tacit film prop .
Jerry Thomas ’ go - to gelatinizing agentive role was isinglass , which is collagen derived from the gas bladders of Pisces the Fishes ( typically sturgeon ) . The fish use them to control their buoyancy . In today ’s eld of readily available jelly from rendered mammal bones and pelt ( eat up up , kids ! ) , isinglass is mainly used for “ fin ” ( Diamond State - haze ) beer . This makes it queerly arduous to find mica outside specialty brewing shops , which were abstracted in spectacular distance of our research laboratory . We decline to allow a footling hiccup like this obstruct our experiment , though . If we could n’t find mica we would make our own .
There are many side welfare to accept our offices within walk distance of Manhattan ’s Chinatown , but the most obvious is quick access to dried Pisces bladder . There are also many side benefits to boiling fish bladder in the office , including see your coworkers ’ exceedingly entertaining faces as the air fills with the scent of a Chinatown Pisces the Fishes store on a blistering day . The aroma was stalwart , durable and , as it plow out , un - Febreze - able . And now everyone loves us here .
Smelling fish stink was one thing , but drinking it was another . We held our olfactory organ as we deform the crisp , wet scraps of Pisces out of the terrifying liquid state . We pause , reluctant to pollute our utterly pleasant punch with this eldritch fish juice . Then we remembered that drinking unearthly fish juice was the whole point of this project in the first place . We poured it in . Then we tasted it .
And we discovered something very crucial : Either General Ford was a cocktail Einstein , or he possessed some sort of witching king that persists to this day in his punches , which have the power to repulse the ill-scented flavors . Somehow , our lovely lemon - Cognac - rum world remained godly .
We poured the punch into molds and refrigerate them overnight .
We go far in the sunrise full of excitement . Jell - oxygen Pisces punch ! conceive of the hypothesis ! We opened the electric refrigerator like it was the Ark of the Covenant , fully prepared to have our face meld off by the sheer awe-inspiring power of fish brandy . Alas , our faces would not melt that day . What we found were palm of what looked like white mucous secretion floating on the aerofoil of an entirely liquid punch . Something had go very , very faulty .
Rather than reactivate our coworkers ’ rage by boiling more Pisces the Fishes bladder ( this time it ’s going to work guys , we ’re using five time as much ! ) , we brute force it . After straining off the fish mucus and bestow what one editor in chief term “ a cigarette ton ” of store bought gelatin , our long - suffering punch retired once again to the refrigerator for the night .
The next dawn , we found success ( yet somehow , our face remained intact ) . Though somewhat promiscuous and wet , the gelatin had set up like a charm . We were the gallant possessor of a massive amount of 19th - century Jell - group O shots . Which is when we encountered one terminal problem : This stuff is toothsome . You need to eat it by the spoonful like it ’s Jell - O , which is on the nose what we did .
We would have done well to mind Thomas ’ word of advice that “ the forte of the clout is so slyly hold back by its admixture with the gelatin , that many person , particularly of the soft sexual urge , have been tempt to partake so bountifully of it as to show them somewhat unsound for waltzing or quadrilling after supper . ” After a intelligent serving of Jelly Punch , not a one of us could quadrille in the slightest , which made our cotilion a bit of a tear . Our first Jerry Thomas experimentation , on the other script , was a success , if a restricted , Pisces - bladdery one .
