punch bowls and punch paraphernalia were historically part of the British ritual of punch drinking. A punch bowl is a hemispherical vessel in which punch is made and served. Beginning in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, punch bowls were made from a variety of materials, including glass, pewter, silver, and wood. But by far the most common punch bowls of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were ceramic, and these were principally made of British delftware, creamware, pearlware, porcelain, and various stonewares, as well as fine Chinese export porcelain. Inexpensive glass punch bowls became increasingly more common from 1800 until the Victorian era, when punch drinking declined. Punch bowls and the ladles that accompany them are still used today but have become dissociated from their historic context.
Traditional punch bowls came in several sizes, ranging from a half pint to a gallon. Large punch bowls typically measured from 25 to 30 cm in diameter, though some colossal communal bowls that were meant to be the centerpieces of elaborate punch parties were upwards of 50 cm in diameter and could contain over 80 l of punch. What made such large punch bowl potent status symbols was not only their size, material, and quality of workmanship but also the cost of the exotic ingredients mixed within them.
“Sneakers”—as they were called—were the small and commonplace punch bowls that were imbibed from by individuals or, in convivial settings, passed from man to man (or woman to woman—punch drinking observed no gender restrictions). These portable and personal-sized punch bowls were the mass-consumer versions of large, unwieldy, and high-end bowls. They were common at both plebeian and privileged gatherings throughout the Atlantic world and are often found in archaeological excavations of houses, drinking establishments, shipwrecks, and far-off campsites. No matter its size, the ubiquitous punch bowl with its intoxicating content was the magnetic and ritual focal point of early modern British masculine sociability at home; in taverns, social clubs, and guilds; and aboard ships.
Inscriptions were often written on the interior of ceramic punch bowls and these became visible as the bowl was emptied. These included pithy exhortations such as “Drink Fair / Dont Swear,” calls to conviviality (“One Bowl More & then”), dedications or invitations to toast such as “Success to Trade,” and patriotic slogans such as “Success to the British Arms.” Punch bowls were also commissioned by individuals as testimonials of business friendships and to commemorate births, marriages, and important political events.
Punch drinking involved a sundry assemblage of paraphernalia. The alcoholic contents of larger bowls were ladled out into glass stemware and tumblers. Punch ladles could be made of silver, pewter, and wood and had deep bowls and long and slender upward-turning handles; these were usually made of whale baleen or wood, so that one could leave the ladle resting in a bowl of hot punch without burning the ladler’s hand. Often these handles were twisted, for rubbing between the hands to stir the punch. More expensive ladles had hammered gold or silver coins set in the bottom, while some curios even had coconut-shell bowls, elaborately set in silver.
Circular silver or pewter punch strainers with long “ears” that rested on punch bowl rims were used to filter out the pulp and seeds of the requisite citrus fruit squeezed into them. Nutmeg graters, often made of silver or silver gilt, came in an assortment of sizes and were little pocketable boxes that were used to grate and store a nutmeg seed. See nutmeg grater. Other paraphernalia that accompanied the punch ritual included sugar bowls and sugar dredgers, crushers, nippers and hatchets to cut sugar cones, knives to peel citrus fruit, decanters, wine funnels, bowls for cooling glasses in ice, and cut-glass punch or toddy lifters, a hollow bulb with a hole in the bottom and a long, hollow stem on top; one would sink the bulb in the punch, place one’s finger over the hole in the stem, and lift out a serving of punch.
While punch bowls continued to be made through the twentieth century at all price levels, the cheap ones tended to be flimsy and the expensive ones frilly and impractical. Only in recent years has serious attention begun to be paid again to the paraphernalia of punch.
See also punch.
Connell, Neville. “Punch Drinking and Its Accessories.” Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society 25, no. 1 (1957): 1–17.
Grigsby, Leslie. “‘Drink Fair, Don’t Swear’: Winterthur’s Punch Bowls and Punch Drinking in America.” Magazine Antiques 161, no. 1 (2002): 176–183.
Harvey, Karen. “Ritual Encounters: Punch Parties and Masculinity in the Eighteenth Century.” Past and Present 124, no. 1 (2012): 165–203.
By: Konrad A. Antczak