Garrick Club Punch , a mix of genever or gin, sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, and maraschino liqueur, chilled with iced soda water, is one of the main vectors by which American-style iced drinks gained a foothold in Britain. See genever and gin. The drink was introduced to London’s exclusive Garrick Club—which opened in 1832 as a place for the wealthy and aristocratic to rub shoulders with the literary and bohemian—by the club’s first manager, the brash, even vulgar, American theatrical impresario Stephen Price (1782–1840). Price was a hard-drinking New Yorker who consumed what was later described as “gin and water” (it could very well have been this punch) in such quantities that his theatrical friends in New York once presented him with a special quart goblet for it.
Price’s Punch escaped the precincts of the Garrick when the irrepressible Theodore Hook, the leading wit of his day, stopped in there one warm afternoon in July 1835 and complained of his thirst. Price personally made him a jug of the punch. Hook liked it so much that he finished it and, “with the accompaniment of some chops,” five more to boot. He became the drink’s evangelist.
While a novelty in London, Price’s drink appears to have been nothing more than a slight variation on the “treacherous” (as a Boston paper labeled it in 1828) American creation “Soda Punch,” attested to in New York and Boston since at least 1822 and one of the beverages that would end up on Peter Bent Brigham’s iconic and influential 1842 Boston drinks list. See Brigham, Peter Bent. In Britain, the recipe would spread far and wide, helped by the fact that it was written on the inside cover of the Garrick’s members’ book and thus available to a high percentage of sporting London. Before long, its defining feature, the iced soda water, was adopted by London’s aristocratic and sporty Limmer’s Hotel, where it would become associated with John Collin, the hotel’s headwaiter. It also served as the basis for the British school of sling-making, yielding among others the Singapore Gin Sling. See Collins; Singapore Sling; and Gin Sling.
Although the original recipe simply specifies “gin,” evidence suggests that that meant “Holland gin,” or genever, although it may profitably also be made with Old Tom or London dry gin. See Old Tom gin and London dry gin.
Recipe: In a 2-liter pitcher, muddle the spiral-cut peel of 1 lemon in 300 ml genever. Stir 60 ml sugar into 60 ml lemon juice and add to pitcher, along with 60 ml maraschino liqueur. Stir well and add 300 ml chilled soda water and 750 ml cold water (original) or 750 grams ice (better).
“For the Evening Gazette.” Boston Evening Gazette, April 12, 1828, 1.“The Garrick.” Harrisburg (PA) Telegraph, July 29, 1873, 1.
Review of The Original, by Thomas Walker. London Quarterly Review, February, 1836, 256.
By: David Wondrich