In the classic “A Christmas carol” Bob has made a hot drink for the family, to drink after their (meager) Christmas dinner. Dickens describes it as “a hot drink of gin and lemons”-anybody know what kind of punch this was? How is it made?
Shoot.
It’s called Orange something, but I can’t remember the name now. I’ll try to look it up.
Wait, I think it’s called Smoking Bishop, actually…maybe.
Smoking Bishop was the drink that Scrooge proposed that he and Cratchit discuss his raise over.
My copy of “The Annotated Christmas Carol” doesn’t have any information about this mixture, unlike many of the other foods and drinks, so it must be no more than what it says: hot water (and sugar, probably) with a little gin and lemons.
Maybe Bob was just relaxing with a Tom Collins.
Razzleberry Tea.
There’s another Victorian novel, maybe The History of Pendennis, where a hot drink with lemons and booze is called “punch”.
Here’s an example of a hot gin punch that has a little more to it.
Possibly something akin to wassail.
No reason why you can’t dilute gin with sugar, lemon juice and hot water. It’s like a poor man’s mulled wine.
This initially scanned as ‘weasel’. I got in image of a Slug cartoon depicting a guy wringing a weasel into a punchbowl.
Obviously it should be called a “Tiny Tim,” cred or not.
I expect that whatever it was, the drink would have been such a common custom that Dickens felt no need to specify it.