Maritime miscellany.
Punch served and celebrated by “Sir Edward Russell, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, in 1746:
“The bowl was the marble basin of a delightful garden, forming the central point of four vast avenues, bordered with orange and lemon trees. A magnificent collation was served on four immense tables, which occupied the length of several avenues. The basin had been filled with four large barrels of brandy, eight barrels of filtered water, twenty-five thousand citrons, eighty pints of lemon juice, thirteen hundred weight of sugar, five pounds of nutmeg, three hundred biscuits and a pipe of Malaga wine. An awning over the basin protected it from rain, which might have disturbed the chemical composition of the delicious beverage; and, in a charming little rose-wood boat, a cabin boy, belonging to the fleet, rowed about on the surface of the punch, ready to serve the joyous company, which numbered more than six thousand persons.”
Like this, only about 1000 times bigger.
“Punch,” in Ben Schott, Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany (New York 2004) 143
Notes:
- Except that Admiral Lord Russell, First Earl Orford, died childless in 1727 and had thrown the punch party in 1694 when he commanded the Royal Navy, not all British forces. Orford had been instrumental in asking William of Orange to descend on England in 1688.