December 17, 2024
Written by Patrick Evans-Hylton, a Johnson & Wales-trained chef, food historian and award-winning food journalist covering tasty trends since 1995. He is the author of Virginia Distilled: Four Centuries of Drinking in the Old Dominion. Visit VirginiaEatsAndDrinks.com for more.
The holidays are a time for tradition and breaking bread with family and friends. Of course, our favorite (real and hypothetical) bread comes from a Virginia bounty of local grains.
Tables across the commonwealth will soon be filled with roasted oysters and rockfish; baked ham in a brown sugar glaze and stuffed with orange slices and cloves; golden, roasted turkeys from the Shenandoah Valley served with all the trimmings; and baskets of soft rolls and cornbread.
It’s a traditional menu, indeed, and contains elements of a Christmas dinner in Coastal Virginia more than 400 years ago.
In 1608, Captain John Smith was on a trade expedition at Kecoughtan, a small village in present-day Hampton and wrote this first account of Christmas in the New World:
“The extreme wind, rain frost, and snow caused us to keep Christmas among the Savages, where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wild fowl and good bread, nor never had better fires in England than in the dry warm smoky houses of Kecoughtan.”
Another tradition of the holidays, from November through the end of the year, are rich, decadent, boozy drinks, meant to warm the body and soul.
“Punch,” in particular, was plentiful – the mixing of distilled spirits with water, sugar, spice and citrus juice from the East Indies – and was found on most tables greeting guests.
“Punch was the gentleman’s drink,” says Colonial Williamsburg Historic Foodways Supervisor Frank Clark. “It was used as a social lubricant and to finalize business deals.”
Another holiday favorite was eggnog. According to Clark, the English have a long history of mixing alcohol and milk to create a variety of foodstuffs.
The toddy, hot toddy, or what was originally known as the “taddy,” was another go-to beverage reaching acclaim by at least the eighteenth century. A recipe in 1786 defined it as a “beverage made of alcoholic liquor with hot water, sugar and spices.” Over time, it’s become a chicken noodle soup of sorts, with a purported cure-all property, especially for colds and related ailments. One thing is certain: it warms from the inside out.
One that has a striking likeness to drinking a boozy sugar cookie: the Tom & Jerry. Its cake-like batter is combined with brandy and rum and topped with warm milk for a unique treat.
The drink remained popular into the early twentieth century, with interest waning and then picking back up for a while in the 1940s. Unlike eggnog, which can be served hot or cold, the Tom & Jerry is always served hot.
Want to make some of these Colonial-inspired Virginia cocktails yourself?
Yields 12–16 cocktails.
John Redwood operated perhaps the first tavern in Norfolk, establishing Redwood’s Ordinary in 1693. Redwood and his family had been involved in the sugar/molasses/rum trade in Barbados when he received a grant for Lot 47 in downtown Norfolk.
Among his first offerings was “Punch, if made good” at sixteen pence per quart, as regulated by the Norfolk County court. Punches, in general, were very popular in Colonial Virginia. They were boozy and ubiquitous in the colony.
MAKE THE SIMPLE SYRUP:
Peel the skin from the piece of ginger and slice into thin disks. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, add the ginger,sugar and water and bring to a boil,stirring occasionally, untilsugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Strain, add to a sealable glassjar and refrigerate until use, up to 1 month.
MAKE THE PUNCH:
In a punch bowl, add the rum, lime juice, lemon juice, orange juice and gingersimple syrup. Serve half a cup of punch, top with sparkling water and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.
Yields 4–6 servings.
George Washington was America’s first president and owner of the country’s largest distillery at the time, and apparently he knew how to throw one heck of a party.
Case in point: his very boozy eggnog recipe. Rooted in England, eggnog was a signature holiday drink in Colonial America. Bottoms up, fellow patriots
MAKE THE EGGNOG
MAKE RUM-INFUSED WHIPPED CREAM
ASSEMBLE THE DRINKS
Yields 4–6 servings.
Hot toddies are simply alcoholic beverages that are served warm, such as hot buttered rum. National Hot Toddy Day is celebrated on January 11, but these cocktails are wonderful all winter long.
A predecessor of hot buttered rum was documented as early as 1594, when Thomas Dawson described “Buttered Beere,” which included beer, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, clove, ginger and sweet butter bubbling away over a fire in a pewter pot.
As the New World was explored and rum became the fashionable drink of the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth centuries, a similar concoction was crafted using that distilled spirit instead.
COCKTAIL INGREDIENTS
COMPOUND BUTTER INGREDIENTS
MAKE COMPOUND BUTTER
PREPARE HOT TODDY
Yields 12–18 servings.
The Tom & Jerry, known for capturing the allure of a sugar cookie in drink form, may have originated as early as 1821.
The drink was so popular up through the twentieth century that it was even served in its own bowl, often emblazoned with the words “Tom & Jerry” on it, making it perhaps the first drink to have its own serving piece specifically crafted for it.
Unlike eggnog, which can be served hot or cold, the Tom & Jerry is always served hot.
BATTER INGREDIENTS
COCKTAIL INGREDIENTS
For each cocktail:
MAKE THE BATTER
MAKE THE COCKTAIL
