Burnt Sherry: A Drink That Never Was?

Two of my favorite characters in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens's last completed novel, are Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn, a couple of young, under-employed barristers-at-law who spend all day doing nothing in empty offices, then spend their evenings going to society gatherings that bore the crap out of them. They're a part of the upper-class world, but they aren't impressed by it, or the people in it, and drift through the parties casually making fun of everyone.  One of my favorite conversations between them comes when they're in a carriage leaving a party:




  'I hate,' said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, 'I hate my profession.'     
    'Shall I incommode you, if I put mine up too?' returned Mortimer. 'Thank you. I hate mine.'     
     'It was forced upon me,' said the gloomy Eugene, 'because it was understood that we wanted a barrister in the family. We have got a precious one.'    
     'It was forced upon me,' said Mortimer, 'because it was understood that we wanted a solicitor in the family. And we have got a precious one.'     '

After a few more minutes of describing their dull jobs, they go on:
  
 'Then idiots talk,' said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking slightly through his nose, 'of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such parrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to rush out into the street, collar the first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, "Go to law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I'll be the death of you"? Yet that would be energy.'     
    'Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity, show me something really worth being energetic about, and I'll show you energy.'    
     'And so will I,' said Eugene.     
    And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, within the limits of the London Post-office town delivery, made the same hopeful remark in the course of the same evening.    

When these two heroes find themselves wrapped up in a murder case, the inspector takes them to the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that smelly riverside tavern where the sailors and wharf rats go for port negus, purl, and dog's nose, which have already come up in this blog. It has to be the most versatile tavern in the whole of Dickens, where Lightwood and Wrayburn go undercover (even though no one is around to eavesdrop) by pretending to be lime merchants. They have a LOT of fun pretending to be lime merchants.

The inspector tells the two that "they burn sherry very well here," and they order up a bottle of burnt sherry. A man named Bob brings it out, and from the passage, we get a distinct idea that there's a real trick to burning sherry:


...although the jug steamed forth a delicious perfume, its contents had not received that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bob carried in his left hand one of those iron models of sugar-loaf hats, before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end of which he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few moments while he disappeared and reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession; finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the applause of his fellow-creatures.

The three men drink a toast to the lime trade.

This isn't the only time the drink appears in Dickens - Mr. Pickwick and his cell-mates drink some burnt sherry in the debtors prison, so it appears in both the first and last full Dickens novels.

But here's the thing: I could find no recipe for burned sherry. I asked the Dickens-L mailing list if it was just sherry served hot or what - the fact that a pub could be said to do it "very well" implied to me that it must have been spiced or something.

However, as far as anyone knows, "burnt sherry" wasn't really a drink at all - Dickens's references to it are just about the only evidence that anyone ever drank such a concoction at all.  "Burned" often just meant "hot" back in the old days - Falstaff refers to drinking "burned sack" when he's just talking about hot wine in Shakespeare - so it's probably just heated sherry. The reference to them burning sherry very well at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters  simply refers to the neat way they have of heating it up in the sugarloaf hat-shaped pot and making it hiss.

I can say, though, that it DOES make some neat hissing noises when you heat it up.

Also, it can catch fire when you heat it. So there's that. I don't know if it's sheer luck that got mine to burn, or if starting the fire takes some skill that I haven't quite mastered, but I could see it making for a really good spectacle.



BURNT SHERRY

Ingredients:
1 glass of sherry

Heat the sherry. That's about it; this is as simple as recipes get. I used a cream sherry from Trader Joe's - a dry sherry might have been a bit closer to what they had at the Porters. If you really want to be "authentic," you can heat it up in your fireplace in a pot shaped like a sugar-loaf hat, which is also known as a "capotain" or "pilgrim hat" - they show up in one of the "Stupid Hats from History" sidebars in The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History, in which they're described as "a top hat that wasn't trying very hard."

Or, if you don't have a pot shaped like one of those, some say it was heated by putting a red hot poker into the tankard. Or, if you have no fireplace, poker, or pot shaped like a sugarloaf hat, you can do what I did the first time and just pour some sherry into a mug and put it in the microwave.

That made for a tasty drink, but the next time I tried it, I "burned" it on the stove in a metal saucepan. It began to hiss splendidly before it even started to bubble, and then, to my surprise and utter delight, caught fire right there in the pot, without me doing anything to ignite it. It was pretty awesome, but I couldn't get it to work again, and, hence, lack photos to prove it. But if the guy with the hat-shaped pot had gotten it to catch fire, then twirled it around, I can certainly imagine that it would look very impressive.

I wish I had better photos, if only because people may not believe me at it catching fire. People thought I was mad to say that the 40 proof rum in the punch would ignite, and this stuff is only 36 proof. But it caught fire, and without me even adding a flame - one might even say that it spontaneously combusted, like Mr. Krook in Bleak House. Even attempts to add flames to it since then have come up short. Perhaps it was just some grease in the pan that started it up?

As to the drink itself, first thing I noticed about burnt sherry upon pouring a glass was the smell - the fumes seemed particularly strong. It did, as Dickens said, "Steam forth a delicious perfurme," which worked its way right into my nostrils and made me think it might be a wise drink to order when you're in a tavern right next to a really smelly river. Being by the river, after all, was a dangerous proposition in those days, when there were not yet any embankments and the river was full of raw sewage, not to mention the dead bodies that some patrons of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters fished out of it for a living. At high tides, the water probably game right up to the door of the place. Dickens describes this happening to an affluent house in Dombey and Son:


    Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery.

Anyway, it's a tasty drink; the stovetop version that had caught fire was thicker than the microwave version, and featured prominent raisin notes (which is fancy wine talk for "it tasted like raisins.") It was also a bit darker in color after "burning."

Thanks to the readers of Dickens-L for weighing in on the topic. Burnt sherry is a tasty, warming drink that'll probably keep the smell of sewage out of your nostrils very well, and gives you the added thrill of knowing that you might just set fire to your apartment when you make it. I haven't had a chance to actually test its powers against the smell of the Victorian Thames, but, well, really, that's just as well.

Micawber's Punch: From Charles Dickens's own recipe

I spoke in the post about egg-hot how much I like Mr. Micawber, the suicidal bon vivant from David Copperfield. Micawber is dirt poor, in and out of debtor's prison, but lives in expectation that "something will turn up."

He is subject to dismal periods of misery, and is something of a windbag, but he's still the life of every party, always able to make a bad situation better, whether it's by making friends in prison or turning a badly burned dinner into a "devil" (ie, spicing up the burned roast and making it edible). His suggestion of doing this when David's hopeless young wife screws up the dinner gives a good sample of how Micawber talks: "If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired.”

Micawber is also an expert punch maker, as was Dickens himself. Punch was generally out of fashion in the Victorian era, but Dickens was often a traditionalist when it came to drinking, and often made a show out of making punch at parties. At the same party above, Micawber demonstrates, just after letting it be known that his own water supply has just been cut off:

To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity.

Micawber seems to be making punch from Dickens's own recipe, which he detailed in an 1847 letter:

Peel into a very strong common basin (which may be broken, in case of accident, without damage to the owner's peace or pocket) the rinds of three lemons, cut very thin, and with as little as possible of the white coating between the peel and the fruit, attached. Add a double-handfull [sic] of lump sugar (good measure), a pint of good old rum, and a large wine-glass full of brandy — if it not be a large claret-glass, say two. Set this on fire, by filling a warm silver spoon with the spirit, lighting the contents at a wax taper, and pouring them gently in. [L]et it burn for three or four minutes at least, stirring it from time to Time. Then extinguish it by covering the basin with a tray, which will immediately put out the flame. Then squeeze in the juice of the three lemons, and add a quart of boiling water. Stir the whole well, cover it up for five minutes, and stir again. At this crisis (having skimmed off the lemon pips with a spoon) you may taste. If not sweet enough, add sugar to your liking, but observe that it will be a little sweeter presently. Pour the whole into a jug, tie a leather or coarse cloth over the top, so as to exclude the air completely, and stand it in a hot oven ten minutes, or on a hot stove one quarter of an hour.  Keep it until it comes to table in a warm place near the fire, but not too hot. If it be intended to stand three or four hours, take half the lemon-peel out, or it will acquire a bitter taste.  The same punch allowed to cool by degrees, and then iced, is delicious. It requires less sugar when made for this purpose. If you wish to produce it bright, strain it into bottles through silk. These proportions and directions will, of course, apply to any quantity.

Most notable here, of course, is the part where you SET THE DRINK ON FIRE.  And did we ever!

Mr. Micawber's Punch:
1 pint of rum
1 wine-glass of brandy
1 cup of sugar
1 liter/quart of boiling water
3 lemons.


I was joined for this one by Michael Glover Smith, with whom I recently wrote a book, Flickering Empire, which is all about the silent film biz in Chicago; the first known film version of A Christmas Carol was made here (the book will be out this year from KWS press).  The two of us split the labor in peeling the lemons; a bowl of fresh lemon peel and sugar smells quite tasty. 

Into this bowl of lemon peel and sugar, one pours the brandy and rum. Dickens favored very fancy cognac for the brandy, but I can't imagine that young David Copperfield would have had that in stock. We used low-end brandy and Bacardi Gold rum, which didn't break the bank but still tasted good.

 Now comes the reall cool part - setting it on fire! 

The Missus made us take the bowl outside for this part. The recommended way to set a bowl of booze on fire is to scoop up a spoonful and set THAT on fire, then pour the flaming spoonful into the bowl. This didn't work for me - like mixing eggs into drinks without creating a tankard full of scrambled eggs, it's the kind of thing one has to practice a bit. Eventually, I set fire to some wax paper and just lowered it into the whole bowl. After a couple of tries, we had a flaming bowl that was, in a word, awesome. We probably could have done it indoors, really, though you can do this at your own risk (edit to add: just lighting some in a spoon then pouring it into the bowl worked like a charm indoors when we tried it again the next week).

It should be noted that no one I talked to thought this would burn - the rum and brandy were both 80 proof, and apparently you should have a higher alcohol content to set booze on fire. The lemon peel and sugar probably helped. In any case, the photo is living proof that the stuff WILL burn using 80 proof liquors. 
Leave it burning for 3-4 minutes (during which time I assure you the novelty does not wear off), then extinguish the fire simply by putting the lid onto the bowl (or crock, in our case), and take the whole thing back inside and brag to the Missus that you did, in fact, manage not to kill yourself or start another Great Chicago Fire. 

Add a quart or so of boiling water, and squeeze in juice from the lemons (I used large lemons, and, hence only used the juice of about half of them), allow it to simmer for a bit, then enjoy! 

This is a really delicious drink - it tastes like a lemony black tea. It has a bit of a kick to it, but one that sneaks up on you. After a few sips I was a bit concerned that maybe setting fire to it had burned away all the alcohol, and realized I'd have to figure out whether or not it had the old fashioned way - by drinking a few glasses and seeing if I felt the effects. I did, by the way.  It would be a fine drink for a party - fun to make, fun to drink! 


Mike remarked that one could taste every part of it - you could taste the sugar, the rum, the brandy and the lemon all distinctly. When I think of punch, I think strictly of Hawaiian punch and other such red drinks that taste delicious, but like nothing that occurs in nature. This was a whole new kind of punch for me, and a tasty one. We will be making this one again soon! Here we are, looking appropriately old-fashioned and enjoying the punch:

It is, in fact, also very good iced. There was some left over that I saved for the next day and poured over ice. It does get a little bit sweeter, making it seem like a very hard lemonade. I think the iced version would make a fine summer drink, but the hot version is perfect for winter.