How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion by Jerry Thomas (1876, p.27) — Jerry Thomas 1876
| London dry gin — good gin | base | |
| Punch a la Ford sherbet base — Ford-style sherbet base | base |
- Make the Ford-style sherbet base as already described.
- Add good gin in the proportion prescribed in the Ford method.
- Bottle the punch and keep it in a cool cellar or cistern.
- Nose
- Aged citrus sherbet and gin botanicals define the nose.
- Palate
- It drinks like a cellared gin punch rather than a fresh bowl drink, with sherbet maturity softening the gin's edges.
- Finish
- The finish is long, citrusy, and gently herbal.
- Summary
- A bottled gin punch that demonstrates how a sherbet-and-ageing system could migrate across base spirits.
This entry is especially helpful for ontology work because it shows Thomas explicitly treating bottled punch as a repeatable process template. Once the method exists, the base spirit can change and generate parallel aged descendants.
The important thing is fidelity to the Ford sherbet process. The gin is not the whole drink; the preserved sherbet architecture is what makes the punch work.
Gin Punch for bottling is almost an algorithm rather than a standalone recipe, and that is historically important. It proves the source itself is thinking in reusable process families.