Negus began life as an English officer’s habit of taking water in wine, to avoid what inevitably ensues if you spend all evening pushing about an undiluted bottle. Francis Negus (ca. 1660–1732) was a socially well-connected gentleman who served under Marlborough, was a member of Parliament, and generally exemplified the perfect modern courtier through his various roles in regal sport, including master of the horse and warden of Windsor Forest.
The earliest mention of his drink comes in a chance bit of marginalia by one of his contemporaries, preserved in an edition of Tacitus and reprinted in the journal Notes and Queries in 1854. It was written between around 1725 and Negus’s death: “After a morning’s walk, half a pint of white wine, made hot and sweetened a little, is recond very good.—Col. Negus, a gentn. of tast, advises it, I have heard say.” By the end of the century, this simple drink had taken some of the trappings of punch—lemon juice, spices—and had become above all a port drink. As such, it was one of the staples of mild household drinking on both sides of the Atlantic; just the thing if you’re a bit chilled or not as sleepy as you might want to be, or merely need a little something to help you relax. Mrs. Beeton even went so far as to suggest that it should be served to children at their parties. Jerry Thomas recommended it for more mature audiences in his 1862 bar guide.
Beeton, S. O. [Isabella Mary]. Mrs. Beeton’s Dictionary of Every-day Cookery. London: S. O. Beeton, 1865.
Thomas, Jerry. How to Mix Drinks. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald. 1862.
TSBR. “Negus.” Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-Communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. 244 (1854): 10.
By: Dinah Sanders and David Wondrich