FLIP

Keep grated ginger and nutmeg with a little fine dried lemon peel rubbed together in a mortar.

To make a quart of flip:-- Put the ale on the fire to warm, and beat up three or four eggs with four ounces of moist sugar, a teaspoonful or grated nutmeg or ginger, and a quartern of good old rum or brandy. When the ale is near to boil put it into one pitcher, and the rum and eggs, &c., into another; turn it from one pitcher to another till it is as smooth as cream.

OLD BOSTON TAVERNS AND TAVERN CLUBS

The Royal Exchange Tavern, State Street

The famous remark of Louis XIV., "There are no longer any Pyrenees," may perhaps be open to criticism, but there are certainly no longer any taverns in New England. It is true that the statutes of the Commonwealth continue to designate such houses as the Brunswick and Vendome as taverns, and their proprietors as innkeepers; yet we must insist upon the truth of our assertion, the latter of the law to the contrary notwithstanding.

No words need be wasted upon the present degradation which the name of tavern implies to polite ears. in most minds it is now associated with the slums of the city, and with that particular phase of city life only, so all may agree that, as a prominent feature of society and manners, the tavern has had its day. The situation is easily accounted for. The simple truth is, that, in moving on, the world has left the venerable institution standing in the eighteenth century; but it is equally true that, before that time, the history of any civilized people could hardly be written without making great mention of it. With the disappearance of the old signboards our streets certainly have lost a most picturesque feature, at least one avenue is closed to art, while a few very a ged men mourn the loss of something endeared to them by many pleasant recollections.

The above, taken from Walter K. Watkins' 1917 work, Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs, only makes me think we had lost our way terribly indeed somewhere there in the midst of the industrial revolution. Long live the tavern!

ALE POSSETT

Mug House

ALE POSSETT.

Boil a pint of new milk with a slice of toasted bread, sweeten and season a bottle of mild ale in a china basin or dish, and pour the boiling milk over it. When the head rises serve it.

LIKE DRINKING IN A CORNER

Henri Mission covers everything about England from drinking healths to debauchery and whores

Whereas in France drinking of Healths is a Custom almost out of Date among People of any Distinction, it being equally impertinent and ridiculous;, here, on the contrary, it still subsists in its full Strength. To drink at Table, without drinking to somebody's Health, especially among middling People, would be like drinking in a Corner, and be reckon'd a very rude Action. There are two principal Grimaces which are universally observ'd, upon this Occasion, among Persons of all Degrees and Conditions: The first is, that the Person whose Health is drank, if an Inferior or even an *Equal, must remain as still as a Statue while the Drinker is drinking. If, for Instance, you are about to help your self to something out of the Dish, you must stop suddenly, lay aside your Fork or Spoon, and wait without stirring any more than a Stone till the other has drank: After which, the second Grimace is to make him a low Bow, to the great Hazard of dipping your Peruke in the Sauce upon your Plate. I own, that to a Stranger these Customs seem ridiculous; he thinks nothing can be more pleasant than to see a Man that is just going to chew a Mouthful of Victuals, cut a Piece of Bread, wipe his Fingers, or any Thing of that Nature, in a Moment put on a grave serious Face, keep his Eyes fix'd upon the Person that drinks his Health, and grow as motionless as if he were taken with an universal Palsy, or struck with a Thunderbolt. As Civility absolutely requires this respectful Immobility in the Patient, so there is some Caution to be used on the Part of the Agent: When you would drink a Man's Health, you should first keep your Eye upon him for a Moment, and give him Time, if possible, to swallow his Mouthful, that you may not reduce him to perplexing and uneasy Necessity of putting a sudden Stop to his Mill, and so fitting a good while with his Mouth cramm'd with a huge Load of Victuals, which commonly getting all to one Side, raises his Cheek as high as an Egg, so forming a large kind of a Wen, often shining with Grease, equally distorted and unseemly. The usual Kick is, for the Men** to drink the Women's Health, and the Women the Men's; and if any one in Company should break this Law, 'twould be reckon'd intolerable Rudeness.

* Unless they live together in a very great Familiarity.
** Upon some certain Occasions they drink round

Now we are getting somewhere. The above, from Henri Mission de Valbourg's 1719 work, M. Misson's Memoirs and Observations in his Travels over England with some Account of Scotland and Ireland, originally published in French and translated to English by Mr. Ozell, give us our first real glimpse it what drinking healths was really about at that time. Obviously, this was not a custom to be taken lightly and there was a great deal of formality and civility about it.

This gives some perspective on why someone who was concerned about the practice for reasons of religion or public safety would feel the need to rail so intensely against it. It seems they were fighting quite an uphill battle indeed.

As a side note, I quite like that at least by translator Mr. Ozell, the person being drunk to is the "Patient" and the drinker the "Agent".

SOCIAL INTERCOURSE

An automatic beer truck

The latter days are but a repetition of the former. `As it was ... so shall it be also. They did eat, they drank.'

Social life is intimately connected with the social or festive board; in short, with eating and drinking, because these are a necessity of nature. Other customs and habits may be fleeting, but men must eat, men must drink. Food ministers not only to the principle of life, but to that of brain force also. Thought is stimulated, activity is excited, man becomes communicable. He then seeks society and enjoys it. Thus has social intercourse gathered round the social board. Eating and drinking are two indispensable factors in dealing with the history of a nation's social life. Adopting the adage by way of accommodation, `In vino veritas,' truth is out when wine is in, once know the entire history of a nation's drinking, and you have important materials for gauging that nation's social life.

So does Richard Valpy French continue in his introduction to Nineteen Centuries of Drink in England.

CONDENSED BEER

Novel containers for beer

A process for condensing beer, recently patented in England, is described as follows in the English Mechanic: Beer or stout is taken at any stage of fermentation, though the process is better applied when it is fit for drinking, and evaporated in a vacuum-pan until it becomes a thick, viscous fluid. The alcohol and water of course pass off in vapor, which, in turn, is condensed in a receiver, and the alcohol recovered by redistilling the liquid. This alcohol may be mixed again with the condensed beer. By this process of condensation, the beer is reduced to one-eight or one-twelfth of its original bulk, and as the fermentation is suspended by the heat employed, the condensed mixture will keep in any climate for any length of time. The process of reconverting the mixture into beer is also a simple one, consisting merely in adding the bulk of water originally abstracted, and setting up fermentation again by the use of a small quantity of yeast or other ferment. Within forty-eight hours the beer may be drawn from the tap for use, or bottled in the ordinary way; or, without using any ferment, the beer may be bottled, and charged with carbonic-acid gas.

From The Popular Science Monthly, December, 1875. This doesn't seem like a very good idea, but I supposed it is encouraging that they knew they'd need to save the alcohol.

THE HAPPY FELLOW

Advertisement for an ale yeast with many alleged health benefits

With my jug in one hand, and my pipe in the other,
I drink to my neighbour and friend;
My cares in a whiff of tobacco I smother,
For life, I know, shortly must end.
While Ceres, most kindly, refills my brown jug,
With good ale, I will make myself mellow;
In my old wicker chair, I will sear myself snug,
Like a jolly and true happy fellow.
Like a jolly, like a jolly, like a jolly and true
happy fellow.

I'll ne'er trouble my head with the cares of the nation,
My own being all I need mind,
For the cares of this life are but grief and vexation,
To death we must all be consign'd.
Then I'll laugh, drink, and smoke, and leave nothing to pay,
But drop, like a pear that is mellow,
And, when cold in my coffin, I'll leave them to say,
"He' gone! What a hearty good fellow!"

English poetry.

DRINKING HEALTHS RUSTIC DARK ALE

First pour of Drinking Healths Rustic Dark Ale

This is the first of Drinking Healths' line of "historic Ales and Porters."

Though we'll be taking inspiration from a range of historical sources, English and American, we start by considering a modern offering from right here in 21st century Boston. Pretty Things' Saint Botolph's Town Rustic Dark Ale has to be poured and tasted to be believed. We thought we'd do something of a tribute to the concept without trying to clone it exactly, because, well, you can just drink it directly for that.

And indeed the first pass at our version of a rustic dark is ready for drinking. Made with light and dark malt extract, decoction mashed with a blend of dark and crystal malts, roasted barley and malted oats, boiled with a modest quantity of Kent hops, chaptalized with dark sugars and molassess, open fermented in Boston air with a mix of English and Belgian ale yeasts, and finally dry conditioned with a small amount of Sovereign hops, the resultant dark, silky ale weighs out at 6.6% ABV.

Be sure to ask a Drinking Healths staff member for a 22 oz. sampler bottle!

ALE-HOUSES ARE HELL-HOUSES!

The Green Dragon Tavern, Boston

And, Oh! that the drinking-houses in the town might once come under a laudable regulation. The town has enormous number of them; will the haunters of those houses hear the counsels of Heaven? For you that are the town-dwellers, to be oft or long in your visits of the ordinary, 'twill certainly expose you to mischiefs more than ordinary. I have seen certain taverns, where the pictures of horrible devourers were hanged out for the signs; and, thought I, 'twere well if such signs were not sometimes too significant: alas, men have their estates devoured, their names devoured, their hours devoured, and their very souls devoured, when they are so besotted that they are not in their element, except they be tipling at such houses. When once a man is bewitched with the ordinary, what usually becomes of him? He is a gone man; and when he comes to die, he will cry out, as many have done, "Ale-houses are hell-houses! ale-houses are hell-houses!" But let the owners of those houses also now hear our counsels. "Oh! hearken to me, that God may hearken to you another day!" It is an honest, and a lawful, though it may not be a very desirable employment, that you have undertaken: you may glorifie the Lord Jesus Christ in your employment if you will, and benefit the town considerably. There was a very godly man that was an innkeeper, and a great minister of God could say to that man, in 3 John 2, "Thy soul prospereth." O let it not be said of you, since you are fallen into this employment, "Thy soul withereth!" It is thus with too many: especially, when they that get a license perhaps to sell drink out of doors, do stretch their license to well within doors. Those private houses, when once a professor of the gospel comes to steal a living out of them, it commonly precipitates them into an abundance of wretchedness and confusion. But I pray God assist you that keep ordinaries, to keep the commandments of God in them. There was an Inn at Bethlehem where the Lord JESUS CHRIST was to be met withal. Can Boston boast of many such? Alas, too ordinarily it may be said, "there is no room for him in the Inn!" My friends, let me beg it of you, banish the unfruitful works of darkness from your houses, and then the sun of righteousness will shine upon them. Don't countenance drunkenness, revelling, and mis-spending of precious time in your houses; let none have the snares of death laid for them in your houses. You'll say, "I shall starve then!" I say, "Better starve than sin:" but you shall not. It is the word of the Most High, "Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed." And is not peace of conscience, with a little, better than those riches that will shortly melt away, and then run like scalding metal down the very bowels of thy soul?

What shall I say more?

Cotton Mather, going on a rant, in Magnalia Christi Americana.

IN PRAISE OF ALE

Table

TIME out of mind, Beer has been the National Beverage, and its history, as embodied in songs and stories, will give a fair reflex of the manners and customs of the various periods at which they were written. I had intended originally to have classified my facts and fancies in a very severe manner, after the style of the Learned Smelfungus or Dryasdust, but I found objections to that plan. To have made my facts as bald as billiard balls, and have arranged them in parallelograms, would have deprived them of much of their charm. A book like this does not come under the hard and fast laws of editing, or the strict canons of criticism, but is rather like a song, without beginning or ending-- a book to be taken up at odd moments, and opened at any page, without undue strain on the reader's consecutive attention.

From the preface of "In Praise of Ale" or "Songs, Ballads, Epigrams, & Anecdotes Relating To Beer, Malt, And Hops," "With Some Curious Particulars Concerning Ale-Wives and Brewers, Drinking-Clubs and Customs," collected and arranged by W. T. Marchant, 1888.

Aside from the fantastic title and great opening paragraph, I suspect we'll be citing this source quite regularly here at Drinking Healths. And about that opening paragraph: we will be attempting to channel exactly that sentiment going forward.

RELATING TO MEMORY HEALTHS

Pouring malt liquor upon the ground in remembrance

If instead of drinking in remembrance of him, CHRIST had by express and positive institution appointed Pouring wine upon the ground for the same purpose; would you then pour wine upon the ground by way of Remembring any other other person whatsoever, absent or departed?

That which shews the aptness of the Supposition, I make use of is, that both Drinking, and Libation, or pouring wine upon the ground, were commonly among the Heathen performed in honour of their Deities; in a grateful remembrance of their Benefactors, and departed Heroes; for the Health of their Kings and Emperors; and to the Success of publick and private affairs, as is fully shewn in the late book upon Healths above-mentioned.

But now under the Gospel, the Action of drinking in Remembrance, and not that of Libation, is by the Wisdom of GOD made choice of, to express our grateful and thankful commemoration of CHRIST; it is adopted into Christianity for the worship, the most solemn worship of the true GOD. Whether he had appointed the one or the other, our obligation to the performance had been the fame; and if he had appointed Libation, all the arguments we should have used with respect to the Sacredness of the action; the consequences drawn from applying it to civil use; the horror we should have conceived from any misapplication of it to a meer man, are all now applicable to the action of Drinking in Remembrance, which CHRIST hath made choice of, and actually appointed; and therefore ought to touch our consciences as feelingly.

On that supposition, pouring wine on the ground would have been the Sacramental action; and the performance of it by way of Honour, or Praise, or Thankfulness, or Remembrance in the mind, would have been the most solemn act of Divine worship; and to be performed with the fame concurring action of the mind and with that intent or purpose, to none by CHRIST, as GOD: And therefore performing that Action in Honour, or Gratitude, or Remembrance of any absent or departed Friends or Benefactors, you would pronounce Profane, Sacrilegious, and Idolatrous.

The above is from John Floyer's "Question I" in his "Letter to a Reverend Gentleman" previously discussed here at Drinking Healths.

The gist of it is, memory healths, whether in the form of raising a toast for a loved one who has passed, or pouring malt liquor on the ground in the name of dead homies in the ground, are sacrilegious because they are a form of false idol worship.

Given this, he despairs terribly that the practice of drinking healths has caught on with Christians at all:

Now do but transfer with me the same reasoning and language to that other action of drinking to any of these purposes, and then we shall alike wonder how Healths should ever have obtained so generally among Christians; however they might prevail among Turks, and Jews, and other Infidels.

Nonetheless, he is still very aware of the common doubts people might express of his opinion. He next addresses those in two "Objections" to his own argument and further responds to those with his own retorts. We will take a look at these objections and responses in a future posts.

ON HOSPITABLE THOUGHTS INTENT

Satan

It must interest every thoughtful being to know how our national life and national customs have come to be what they are. They have not sprung up in a night like a mushroom. They have been forming for ages. Each day has contributed something. The great river of social life, ever flowing onward to the ocean of eternity, has been constantly fed by the tributaries of necessity, appetite, fashion, fancy, vanity, caprice, and imitation. Man is a bundle of habits and customs.

With some, it is true, life is mere routine, a round of conventionalities; literally `one day telleth another;' with others, each day is a reality, has its fresh plan, is a rational item in the account of life. To these nothing is without its meaning; there is a definiteness, a precision, about its hours of action, of thought, of diversion, of ministering to the bodily claims of sustenance by eating and drinking. Around the latter, social life has fearfully encircled itself. The world was, and still is, -- `On hospitable thoughts intent.'

The above, taken from a tome which I suspect we will cite often here at Drinking Healths, is one Richard Valpy French's 1884 work, Nineteen Centuries of Drink In England.