Tract · Cocktails

Flip · Stirred · Historical · complexity 4/5

Rumfustian

Rumfustian is the book's heaviest hot egg-and-beer compound, combining beer, white wine, gin, spice, and egg yolks.

beer · wine · egg · gin · hot_service · intoxicating · communal

Served in Jug or cup.

Variants (2)

Oxford Night Caps by Richard Cook (1860, p.30) — Oxford 1860

1 wholelemon peel — juice from the peeling of a lemonacid
12 wholeegg yolk — egg yolksbase
0.5 pintgin base
cinnamon — A small quantity.other
1 wholenutmeg — Grated.other
1 quartstrong ale — strong beerother
1 bottlewhite wine other
sugar — Enough to sweeten.sweetener
  1. Prepare the drink precisely in the same way as Rum Booze, using the stated combination of yolks, beer, wine, gin, spice, lemon-scented sugar, and sweetener.

Rumfustian sits in the overlapping territory between posset, flip, and wassail-like fortified ale bowls.

Its identity is mostly one of scale and intensity on top of the Rum Booze template.

Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks by William Terrington (1869, p.198) — Terrington 1869

1 lemonlemon peel — thin rind of lemonacid
0.5 pintgin base
0.5 bottlesherry base
1 pintale other
3 wholecardamom — cardamom seedsother
0.25 ozcinnamon — Bruised.other
3 wholeegg yolk — egg yolksother
0.25 wholenutmeg — Grated.other
2 ozsugar sweetener
  1. Put the sherry in a saucepan with the bruised cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, sugar, and thin rind of lemon and digest by the side of the fire until nearly boiling.
  2. Whisk up the egg yolks with the ale and gin.
  3. Pour the hot sherry mixture through a strainer into the egg mixture while stirring and serve.

Rumfustian is one of the great old English compound-drink names, so having a full Terrington witness matters.

Its structure ties together mulled wine, flip, and ale-posset practice in a single drink.

Related recipes

See also: Sleeper, Locomotive, Egg Flip

Cook says only hard drinkers would dare regale themselves with it a second time.