The inspiration for this recipe is an 1843 formula made by Texan soldiers held by the Mexicans at Perote prison. The recipe called for “vino mascal,” ass’s milk, eggs, and sugar. For our version, I decided to split the base between mezcal and añejo tequila, plus a little crème de cacao and cinnamon, resulting in a smoky, spiced chocolate-and-vanilla eggnog that will please all the agave-spirit lovers in your life!

Making a batch of eggnog is more like a baking project than it is like making a cocktail. And, as with punch, time is an important ingredient in its successful construction; with a little time, the concoction melds into a silky-smooth drink akin to boozy melted ice cream. This "classic recipe" is a kind of summary of many a 'nog past, combining the original duo of brandy and rum with the more rustic rye whiskey, which form a balanced triumvirate that counters the sweetness of the egg-and-dairy mixture beautifully.

As with punch and flip, eggnog began as a large-format drink that eventually also became available in single-serving form. This shift reflects the changing nature of drinking and bartending in the nineteenth century. Single-serving eggnog is very similar to a flip, with the addition of dairy. This recipe is written for our “classic” mix of spirits; see the fortified wine and Texian recipes for variations.

Making a batch of eggnog is more like a baking project than it is like making a cocktail. And, as with punch, time is an important ingredient in its successful construction; with a little time, the concoction melds into a silky-smooth drink akin to boozy melted ice cream. This "classic recipe" is a kind of summary of many a 'nog past, combining the original duo of brandy and rum with the more rustic rye whiskey, which form a balanced triumvirate that counters the sweetness of the egg-and-dairy mixture beautifully.

For this flip, I took post-Civil War technique and style and applied it to pre-Civil War ingredients. As we saw with our At Loggerheads a few years back, flips in the eighteenth century were ale-based and served hot. But the Gilded Age brought ice and shakers into the equation and, though beer-based versions did exist (especially with porter), fortified wine as well as spirits took over as the most common base. I love the flavor of this drink, the walnut adds this really pleasant bitterness to the whole thing; it kind of tastes like melted pumpkin ice cream with walnuts on top.

Spirit-forward drinks were exceedingly popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century–from Bumbo to Slings, Toddies, Cock-tails, and Black Strap, they’re all just variations on sweetened, diluted spirits. The Cock-tail, of course, is the one with bitters in it. I love maple and walnut together and it works beautifully with the sherry base. Though this recipe features a complex “Improved Cocktail” structure (which dates to later in the 1800s), it could very well have existed during our period of interest!

This is an imagined punch that might have been from the early republic with favorite products of the period, all of which would have been available for purchase in olde New English taverns. Aged rum and brandy is just about a classic eighteenth-century punch base as you’ll find and the sherry gives it this wonderful nutty, oxidized flavor. There’s a noble history of using oranges in punch and I really like what it’s doing here! And I really love orange with maple, it’s such an autumnal combination for me; this combo is also featured in my most popular BA recipe ever, the Applejack Sour. And in fact, we’re doing this with apple brandy instead of rum at Gigantic this fall, and it’s delicious both ways!

As you know, my historically-driven palate favors the spirits that were popular in 19th-century juleps, i.e. rye, Cognac, and rum. For my own julep recipe, I wanted to combine these three in equal parts with a favorite amaro (Braulio or dell’erborista are particularly good here, but there are many that would work!). I also decided to make the garnish do a little aromatic work, hence the nutmeg and shaved coffee bean, which hit the nose along with the mint upon first sip. The sherry float also contributes a nice aroma if desired!

This is probably the drink that first comes to mind when you think of juleps (unless your brain is stuck in the 19th century like me)! The bourbon-based julep is the one that has survived into the modern age, thanks in no small part to its connection with the Kentucky Derby. For this recipe, I wanted it to be exceedingly elemental. Since we’ve combined the sugar and mint in our mint syrup already, this julep requires but two ingredients (plus a big bouquet of mint, of course). It is simplicity at its finest!

This recipe, based on one from the 1850s, gives a window into what pre-Civil War juleps looked like after ice had established itself as an essential part of the drink. The mixture of Cognac and rye and the slight presence of Jamaican rum illustrate the julep’s former life as a rum drink and the preference for a brandy base during this period while also foreshadowing the rise of rye juleps that would come after the Civil War (see Dabney Julep from our Pre-Civil War Black Tavern-keepers theme). NB: crushed ice is preferred over pebble here.

Syllabub is a wine- or cider-based, cream- and egg white-laced drink dating to the Elizabethan period. I added gin for a little Christmas pine flavor and opted for honey over sugar, which has a beautiful conversation with the rose, lemon, and cinnamon. Syllabub, and with its cousin posset, are often cited as predecessors to flip, eggnog, and Tom & Jerry. Over time, syllabub became more and more solid, morphing into an alcohol-laced dessert rather than a drink.

Shrubs were a popular method of preserving fruit in New England during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Though almost all apple cider in those days was fermented, I saw an opportunity here to build a non-alcoholic drink reflecting this month’s historical milieu with sweet, non-alcoholic cider, cranberry shrub, and our ginger-molasses syrup, with lemon juice to bolster the acid and salt and cayenne to liven things up.

Sometimes called Black Stripe, this drink is a toddy-like mixture of rum, molasses, and hot or cold water that comes from the same seafaring roots at Calibogus (and, indeed, early versions at sea contained spruce ale). Blackstrap was one of the most popular tavern drinks of the late eighteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries in rural New England. Our version uses nineteenth-century techniques to revive this forgotten Rum Old-Fashioned ancestor.

This drink is another that was emblematic of American culture in the days of the early Republic but has since been forgotten. Popular in winter, as they were traditionally served hot, Apple Toddy recipes, including the one in Jerry Thomas’s 1862 book, typically call for mixing apple brandy with hot water and baked apple, and topped with nutmeg. Our version is a little more complex, with notes of cranberry, vanilla, spices, and ginger.

Though the Sour template predates the Fix slightly, the latter–a Sour served over crushed ice–was an incredibly popular member of the family in the mid-nineteenth century. Our recipe is diluted with a measure of water, just like the earliest extant Fix and Sour recipes–a nod to their evolution as a single-serving punch.

A menu for Othello Pollard’s Boston restaurant from 1803 listed Solid Arguments (foods), Agitations (acidic things), Grievances (spicy things), Superfluities (sweets) and Punishments (alcohol). Under punishments one finds “ice-punch,” a version of the already very entrenched crowd-pleasing drink served on the new craze: ice. Below is our imagined vision of what may have been in that punch.

There are two schools on the history of the Hail-storm and my suspicion is that they have both been true and different points in history. One is that “Hail-storm” is just another term for a Mint Julep, and the other is that the drink was sweetened brandy served over ice. I opted to explore the latter here, making it a nice chilled capital-C Cocktail–a drink that otherwise remained room temp for much longer than contemporaries like the Cobbler, Fix, etc.

Like many of the Black culinarians we’re learning about this month, Thomas Downing was not considered a bartender, but a restaurateur who ran an oyster cellar and catering business. But we know he served drinks at his establishment and, as Cobblers were the order of the day, I opted to create one with Madeira and brandy which were en vogue in New York City during Downing’s heyday.

John Dabney was so famous for his Mint Juleps that his obituary claimed that he “concocted more mint juleps than any man in the country.” His were rye-based, piled high with crushed ice and garnished with abandon. One description of a Dabney Julep listed mint, a strawberry, cherry, a slice of pineapple, and a pink rose as garnishes.

The California gold rush created an incredible demand for all kinds of goods that the Bay area didn’t yet have the infrastructure and stock to provide. Coffee was one such commodity and its price skyrocketed as coffee merchants sought to make big profits off the miners’ newfound wealth. I imagine that the miners would have spiked their expensive coffee with a bit of whiskey and sweetened it with pricey sugar and vanilla, too.