Stories abound of American drinkers being put off by the warm cask ales of England, which are actually served at a cool cellar temperature that only seems warm in comparison to the ice-cold lagers sold here. Advertising for mass-market beers often emphasizes coldness above all else. A recent innovation in beer marketing is a can boasting “Two-Stage Cold Activation” with strips that change color to indicate when the beer has reached cold and “super-cold” temperatures, allowing the consumer to enjoy it at “the peak of refreshment.”
In the modern context, an entire chapter devoted to beer drinks that are served hot will strike many readers as strange. Indeed, in the early stages of writing the book, my intent was to include only two or three hot beverages in the section on vintage drinks. But as I researched historic beer drinks more thoroughly, I realized that there was far more to warm beer drinks than I’d expected, a genre of libations that has been almost entirely forgotten in modern times. As I dug deeper into the recipes and re-created them at home, I concluded that this lost style of drink merited a chapter of its own.
A booklet published in England in 1724 goes so far as to argue that imbibing warm drinks is best for the health. Titled Warm Beer; or, A Treatise, wherein is declared by many reasons, that beer so qualified, is far more wholesome than that which is drank cold with a confutation of such objections as are made against it (titles were longer then), it makes for dry reading, but the argument stemmed from a belief that the stomach digested food by boiling it. Hot drinks, therefore, were better for digestion than cold ones. We know better now, but the appeal of hot ale drinks is still worth contemplating.
It helps to imagine the setting in which they were consumed, going back in time to before the invention of central heating. Picture a rural traveler taking a sleigh-load of crops to sell in the city, stopping to spend the night and warm his weary body at one of the many taverns along the way. Alice Morse Earle describes the scene in Customs and Fashions in Old New England:
[The] host made his profits from the liquor he sold and from the sleeping-room he gave. Sometimes the latter was simple enough. A great fire was built in the fireplace of either front room—the bar-room or parlor—and round it, in a semicircle, feet to the fire and heads on their rolled-up buffalo robes, slept the tired travelers. . . . It was certainly a gay winter’s scene as sleigh after sleigh dashed into the tavern barn or shed, and the stiffened driver, after “putting up” his steed, walked quickly to the bar-room, where sat the host behind his cage-like counter, where ranged the inspiring barrels of old Medford or Jamaica rum and hard cider.
On nights like those, an ice-cold taste of the Rockies was the last thing a drinker needed. A big mug of warm ale, sweetened with a little sugar, flavored with a dash of spice, and fortified with a splash of liquor, however, was just the ticket.
Perhaps the drink would be thickened with egg, cream, or oats. These brews weren’t just drinks; they were sustenance for a cold and weary traveler. Tavern owners had two main ways of heating ale. They didn’t have modern gas or electric ranges, so all the heat had to come from the fire. The method that’s remembered most today is the loggerhead or “flipdog,” a heavy metal rod that was kept in the fire and heated until red hot. The hot loggerhead would be plunged into a mug of ale, caramelizing the sugars, heating the liquid, and building a big, frothy head. (For more on this technique, see the Flip on this page.)
The other common way of heating ale was to use a muller, a metal pot designed for warming ale in a fire. These came in two styles: One of these was a sort of boot shape, the “toe” of which could be stuck into a fire to warm the ale. The other was shaped like a deep cone that could be set down into coals. This latter device appears in Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop when a patron orders a pint of warm ale:
The landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it to Mr. Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant upon mulled malt.
The website Old & Interesting documents another approach to heating beer, the German and Austrian bierwarmer. This was a glass or metal tube that was filled with boiling water and then put into one’s mug. In later years, electric versions of the same tool were invented, although the fashion for using them has died out.
By 1893, W. T. Marchant was already lamenting the decline in popularity of these drinks in his book In Praise of Ale:
It is a matter of regret that some of the more comforting drinks have gone out of date. When beer was the staple drink, morning, noon, and night, it was natural that our ancestors would prefer their breakfast beer warm and their “night-caps” flavoured.
Heated beer drinks such as the Flip, Wassail, Mulled Ale, and the Dog’s Nose continued to appear in drink books through the early twentieth century. When Charles Baker published his Gentleman’s Companion in 1939, he included a section of “seventeen or so ‘Hot Helpers’ calculated to keep chill swamp mists at bay, banish the megrims and warm body, heart & soul into a fine & amiable disposition.” Four of Baker’s Hot Helpers were made with beer, so this chapter borrows the name in honor of his contribution to keeping warm beer cocktails alive.
Hot beer drinks show up occasionally in later books, but one gets the impression that their inclusion became something of a formality, with the recipes lingering on like ghosts. They are rarely served in modern bars, which no longer have raging fires warming their patrons or iron loggerheads standing ready to froth a flip. Contemporary bars are very good at chilling drinks and often have elaborate ice programs. But heating drinks? At most bars there may be hot water or steam from an espresso or coffee machine, or perhaps a hot plate. The options are a lot more limited.
Warm drinks are one genre in which the mastery and creativity of bartenders of earlier centuries tends to surpass our own. Heated ale drinks are rare finds on today’s menus, but they are well suited to the colder months. They deserve a place alongside the Hot Toddy, Hot Buttered Rum, and Tom and Jerry as classic warmers to imbibe on a chilly winter night.
Fortunately, the hot ale drinks of yore can be re-created with standard kitchen equipment, although I go into a few other methods as well (see this page for a discussion of sous vide). Heating ale in a pot on a kitchen range is just fine. The key is to heat it gradually and prevent it from becoming too hot, so having a thermometer on hand is useful. Excessive heating will accentuate bitterness and make the drink too hot to consume. In my experience, 140°F (60°C) is a good target temperature.
Finding the right beer is also important. The beers of earlier times were malt-driven, perhaps retaining a little more residual sugar than modern beers, and were not hopped as aggressively as contemporary ales. Even supposedly malty American ales tend to be liberally flavored with hops, although there are exceptions. For the most part, I find that Scottish and English ales are the best bet for these drinks. Though certainly not traditional, Belgian quadrupels can work well too.
My go-to beer for hot ale drinks is Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome, a malty English ale that, as the name implies, only comes out in the winter. But when else would one be making these drinks?
Some other good options are Robinson’s Old Tom, Greene King Abbot Ale, Belhaven Scotch Ale, Great Divide Claymore Scotch Ale, Traquair House Ale, Hen’s Tooth, and Old Speckled Hen. Rich barrelaged ales like Samuel Smith’s Yorkshire Stingo and J. W. Lees Harvest Ale also work nicely, but not nearly so well as to justify the expense of mixing them into cocktails. (Though by all means, do buy those beers and enjoy them as intended. They’re wonderful.)
The drinks in this chapter can be a little tricky to make, and some of them are downright weird. Yet there is a reason people enjoyed them for centuries. Made correctly, they’re very tasty. Charles Baker thought that his Hot Helpers would be the most valuable drinks in his book:
For when a man is wet and chilled through, blue with cold and long exposure in such voluntary tortures as November duck blinds, the wheel of an ocean-going sailing craft in a winter chance, or in any chilly and depleted situation, a Hot Helper will in 5 short minutes recall him from being a sorry and useless thing into restoration as a warm-hearted homebody, kind to dogs, children, wives, and even landlords.
With a testimonial like that, how can one resist? Give the drinks in this chapter a try and revive a bit of lost drinking history.
12 oz. (360 ml) English-style ale
About 1 ½ tbsp. brown sugar, or to taste
Pinch of ground cinnamon Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
In a pot, combine the ale, sugar, and spices and heat them over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Pour them into a large warmed mug along with the cognac and orange wheel.
With the assistance of an older friend or a fake ID, college students today can purchase a keg of cold, fizzy beer just by visiting a liquor store. It wasn’t always this easy. Before the days of cheap refrigeration, beer required tending. It was alive. A cask of ale had to be treated properly or else it would spoil.
Cedric Dickens, great-grandson of Charles Dickens, knew that a college keg party required care and preparation. While attending Eton and Cambridge, he learned the valuable skill of keeping a cask of ale in good condition.
“We kept the beer in our hot and smoky sitting-room,” he recalled in Drinking with Dickens. “To counter the atmosphere, the first man back after the holidays was responsible for getting in two small barrels, covering them with damp cloths on which he sowed cress. Three days later mustard seed was added and allowed to germinate.” The layer of cress and mustard kept the ale cool, protecting it from the depredations of heat and pipe-smoking college students.
When the ale was at its prime, “invitations were then issued to particular friends to join a select first-of-the-term party—the girls to eat mustard and cress sandwiches, the men to drink the clearest, coolest glass of amber ale ever drawn—ale fit for young Charles himself.” One hopes for everyone’s sake that they poured some ale for the women too.
This was the practice at summer parties. In winter they instead mulled the ale, infusing a stronger beer with spices, sweetening it, and serving it hot. Quaffing a mug of mulled ale with Cedric Dickens and his Cambridge pals must have been a treat. We can’t re-create the company, but we can take a stab at the drink. The recipe here is based on Cedric’s recipe, to which I’ve taken the liberty of adding a wheel of orange. It needn’t be followed exactly. As long as the elements of malty ale, winter spices, sugar, and brandy are in place, it should come out very nicely.
About 1 ½ tbsp. brown sugar, or to taste
1 ½ oz. genever or Old Tom gin
Freshly grated nutmeg, for garnish
In a pot, gently heat the porter over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C), stirring the sugar into it while it heats. Pour the genever or gin into a warmed mug, then add the porter. Garnish with a fresh grating of nutmeg.
The Dog’s Nose is a drink that appears in Charles Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers. In a scene set in a pub, a member of the local branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association reports on the month’s new converts to the alcohol-free lifestyle. The first of these is H. Walker, a tailor with a wife and two children, who finds himself out of work and penniless.
Walker was formerly a habitual drinker of beer and ale. He claimed to “twice a week, for twenty years, taste ‘dog’s nose,’ which your committee find upon inquiry, to be compounded of warm porter, moist sugar, gin, and nutmeg.” It was perhaps under the influence of one of these potent pints that Walker was stuck with a rusty needle, causing him to lose the use of his right hand and hence his livelihood. Reformed by the accident, the newly temperate Walker “has nothing but cold water to drink, and never feels thirsty.”
With such a wonderful pedigree, I knew that I wanted to include the Dog’s Nose in this book. The problem was my early attempts at making the drink never turned out very well. I’ve experimented with it as far back as 2007, and while it made for an interesting literary allusion, it never appealed to me as anything more than a curiosity. It was certainly not the sort of thing I could picture anyone drinking twice a week for twenty years.
I was obviously doing something wrong, and revisiting the drink a few years later I figured out what it was. I was using the wrong gin. Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers in 1836, which was a very interesting time in the history of distillation. Throughout the 1700s, England had suffered a “Gin Craze” as cheap, high-proof, low-quality gin swept the nation. As recounted in Lesley Jacobs Solmonson’s informative Gin: A Global History, London in the 1730s was annually producing fourteen gallons of gin per resident. By 1750, the number of licensed gin retailers in London had swelled to 29,000. Life in eighteenth-century London was full of hardship, and the poor understandably eased their pains with inebriation. (Beer, in contrast, was viewed as a wholesome beverage. A 1751 pair of prints titled Beer Street and Gin Lane depict the stereotypical impressions of the two drinks. On Beer Street everyone is healthy and happy. On Gin Lane, everyone is drunk, impoverished, and reckless.)
By the 1830s, gin production had begun to shift to a higher-quality product. London distillers began making what we might today recognize as an “Old Tom”– style gin, which shares some of the botanical complexity of London dry with a sweeter body. This was sold to pubs by the barrel and would have had some sugar added to make it more palatable.
Another important development of 1830 was Aeneas Coffey’s patent on the column still. Prior to this, English producers used pot stills to produce gins similar in style, though usually much inferior to, Dutch genever. This new method of distillation allowed for the production of cleaner, more neutral spirits, leading to the eventual development of the London dry gins we know today. Though wonderful in a martini, these are not the sorts of gins the cast of a Dickens novel would have used to spike their porter.
Fortunately, quality versions of genever and Old Tom gin have arrived on the American market in the years since I made my first Dog’s Nose. Either of these works much better in the drink. Genever will give it a pleasing background maltiness and Old Tom will give it a slightly more assertive botanical aroma. Which to use is a matter of personal preference. Both do better than a dry gin.
With the gin covered, how about the porter? As with many of the cocktails in this chapter, English brands are the most reliable bet. American porters tend to be a little heavier on the hops, though there are exceptions. Try to find a porter that is not too bitter and has a good, malty body. The best selections I’ve found so far are Anchor Porter from San Francisco and the Taddy Porter from Samuel Smith in England.
About ½ cup (110 g) packed brown sugar, or to taste
Peel of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon (about 1 ½ oz.)
2 roasted apples or fresh sliced oranges
Combine everything but the apples in a large pot and heat over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Remove from the heat, add the apples or oranges, and serve in warmed mugs.
Of all the hot ale drinks, none is remembered so well as wassail. The word conjures up images of happy carolers traveling from door to door, spreading holiday cheer as they sipped from warm mugs. But it’s mostly the word wassail that is remembered. So what was it? Recipes vary widely, but generally speaking, it was a variety of mulled cider or ale.
Wassailing is now associated with Christmas, but its roots are likely pre-Christian. The word derives from the Anglo-Saxon toast waes hael, meaning “be in good health.” The proper response to this was drinc hael, a toast to one’s health, which led, of course, to drinking.
Some forms of wassailing would have been performed for trees, not people, to ensure a good apple harvest. Wassailing was also a kind of charity. The poor would go from house to house, asking for wassail and food, offering in exchange their goodwill and song. An example of the latter gives a clue to the recipe:
Wassail, wassail, all over the town Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With the wassailing bowl, we’ll drink to thee.
The role of the brown beer is obvious, but the white toast requires some explanation. Floating toasts of dense bread in punch was once a common practice. Drinkers today may prefer to skip the toast and opt for roasted apples; slicing an orange into thin wheels is an even simpler garnish.
This recipe is adapted from the charmingly titled Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, an 1869 book of recipes written by William Terrington. Terrington’s book provides an in-depth look at beer drinks as they were made in the mid-1800s. The addition of moderately sweet, nutty sherry adds a wonderful richness to the drink.
12 oz. (360 ml) English-style ale
Boiling water
In a pot, heat the ale over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Warm a tempered glass mug with boiling water. Discard the water and immediately add the sugar, rotating the mug so that the sugar coats the sides of the mug. Add the rum, tilt the mug so that it reaches the edge of the glass to facilitate setting it aflame, and ignite the rum with a match or lighter. Holding the mug by the handle, rotate the mug and allow the flame to gradually caramelize the sugar. Pour the hot ale into the mug, extinguishing the flame (as shown on this page). Allow the mug to cool to a safe temperature before drinking.
The Europeans who settled the northeastern United States had a mighty thirst for rum. Colonial Americans knocked back gallons of pure alcohol each year. A lot of this was rum, and a lot of this rum was poured into a drink called the Flip.
The days are short, the weather’s cold,
By tavern fires tales are told.
Some ask for dram when they first come in,
Others with flip and bounce begin.
That’s from a 1704 almanac, reproduced in drink historian Wayne Curtis’s book And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the World in Ten Cocktails, in which he describes the popularity of the Flip as bordering on a mania.
The recipe for a basic flip called for just three ingredients: rum, ale, and a sweetener such as sugar or molasses. It’s the method of preparation that made the drink unique. Tavern owners adapted the loggerhead—a long iron tool with a bulbous head used for melting tar pitch—to heat drinks instead. The loggerhead would be kept in the tavern fire, then plunged into a tankard of flip, causing it to heat up and build a big, frothy head. It also caramelized the sugar, giving the drink a bittersweet flavor.
Colonial Americans drank flips in astonishing quantities. Curtis writes that flip tumblers of the era held up to a gallon each. One can imagine that so much alcohol often caused disputes in taverns to end with physical blows—from which we get the phrase “at loggerheads” to describe a conflict.
The traditional Flip is a delicious drink, but re-creating it in modern times can be a bit tricky. I have tried it out with a loggerhead that Portland blacksmith Nathan Zilka fashioned for me (the metal tool in the photo on this page), and it is a fun experience. Dave Arnold, the inventive mind behind the bar Booker and Dax in New York, has gone so far as to fabricate his own electric Red Hot Poker, which he heats to 1,700°F (930°C) before plunging it into drinks. But not everyone has a fireplace, much less an iron loggerhead.
I’ve come up with a more practical method inspired by a popular Portland cocktail called a Spanish Coffee. In this drink, a tempered glass mug is given a sugar rim, then high-proof rum and orange liqueur are ignited in the glass. The flames gradually caramelize the sugar, then a stream of coffee liqueur is added, and finally all is extinguished with a pour of hot coffee. Whipped cream and a grating of spice complete the drink. At its birthplace, Hubers Café, the bartenders and waitstaff have the process of making Spanish Coffees down to a deftly executed routine.
At my own bars, where we did not always prepare for Spanish Coffees, unexpected orders of this complicated drink were the bane of my existence. However, I later realized that the Spanish Coffee method could be used to replicate the burnt sugar character of a flip made with a metal poker. Flames from ignited rum can be used to caramelize sugar in a mug, and then ale warmed on a stove can be poured in to put out the fire. It’s not quite as dramatic as plunging a red-hot loggerhead into a giant tankard, but it gets the job done.
Make this drink with a good English ale; my favorite for this is Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome. For the rum, choose a high-proof Jamaican like Smith & Cross. It has the alcohol content to ignite easily and complex aromatics that combine beguilingly with caramelized sugar and warm ale.
As always when making cocktails that involve flame, care must be taken to avoid injury. Use a preheated, tempered glass mug to avoid having it shatter. Prepare the drink away from anything flammable, preferably over a metal sink. And finally, be sure to allow the glass to cool sufficiently before touching it with one’s hand or lips.
A cocktail of just rum, sugar, and warm beer may not sound like much, but somehow the Flip adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. I argue you to give it a try to see why so many early American taverngoers couldn’t get enough of it.
16 oz. (480 ml) English-style ale
In a warm bowl or pitcher, beat the eggs with a splash of ale, the sugar, and the nutmeg. Add the rum. In a pot, gently heat the remaining ale over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Gradually add it to the egg mixture, beating with a fork or whisk all the while. Pour the mixture back and forth between two pitchers until it is smooth, then pour through a fine-mesh strainer and serve in warm mugs.
The simple Flip described on this page and this page inspired more elaborate variations, often flavored with spices or made creamy with the addition of whole eggs. Eventually egg became the defining feature of the drink. Contemporary use of the word flip denotes pretty much any cocktail with a whole egg in it, usually served cold and often without any beer or rum at all. A few contemporary flips appear in the final chapter of this book (see the Averna Stout Flip on this page).
By the time Jerry Thomas compiled his Bar-Tender’s Guide in 1862, the Flip had taken a step closer to our modern interpretation of the drink. Thomas’s book provides recipes for six flips, five of which call for eggs. Four of them call for ale, showing that beer was still an important, though optional, part of the drink.
Technique had evolved too, with the glowing-hot loggerhead replaced by simply warming the ale by the fire. The warmed ale was then poured into a pitcher with beaten eggs, sugar, spices, and rum or brandy. “The essential in ‘flips’ of all sorts,” Thomas wrote, “is . . . to produce the smoothness by repeated pouring back and forth between two vessels, and beating up the eggs well in the first instance.”
Following the instructions is important; I was a bit careless in my first attempt and ended up with what can only be described as hot beer and scrambled eggs. Not recommended.
The two important steps to get right are the gradual incorporation of the ale and the pouring back and forth of the flip. When pouring the warm beer into the egg mixture, do so gradually and continue beating the eggs as the ale pours; it may help as well to beat a little cold ale into the eggs before warming the beer. For the vessels in which to pour the flip back and forth, use steel bowls, insulated cocktail shakers, or large steel pitchers of the sort that baristas use to steam milk. Warm them with hot water first so that they don’t cool down the drink. If done correctly, the repeated pouring back and forth will make the flip “as smooth as cream.” (The appearance of this smooth liquid pouring back and forth led to the drink also being called a Yard of Flannel.)
Odd as this drink may sound, it has a warmth and richness that makes it very enticing. Jerry Thomas suggests its use as a cold remedy, but I enjoy it any time the weather turns chilly.
For the beer, use a mild English ale; this is a good drink for Old Speckled Hen, for instance. For the rum, I’m once again drawn to a strong naval-style rum like Smith & Cross.
The recipe here follows Thomas’s Rum Flip almost exactly. The only major change is that he called for a quart of ale. I’ve halved the quantities of everything to produce a more reasonable volume; it’s still plenty to serve two or three people.
10 oz. (300 ml) English-style ale
2 oz. (60 ml) genever or Old Tom gin
In a warm bowl or pitcher, beat the egg yolks with a splash of ale, the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and genever or gin. In a pot, gently heat the sherry and remaining ale over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Gradually add the sherry mixture to the egg mixture, beating with a fork or whisk all the while. Pour the mixture back and forth between two pitchers until it is smooth, then pour through a fine mesh strainer and serve in warm mugs.
Rumfustian “is the singular name bestowed upon a drink very much in vogue with English sportsmen, after their return from a day’s shooting.” So wrote Jerry Thomas in his Bar-Tender’s Guide.
Surprisingly, the Rumfustian doesn’t contain any rum. It’s essentially a flip made with sherry and gin; given the timing of the book’s publication, the gin would have likely been an Old Tom or genever rather than a spirit similar to today’s London dry.
A very similar drink from the same period was Purl. Originally made by infusing ale with wormwood, it evolved into a warm ale drink mixed with gin, sugar, and spices, much like the Dog’s Nose (this page) or Mulled Ale (this page). Purl-men sold it to workers from boats on the Thames River. A modern interpretation of the drink can now be found at Purl, a cocktail bar in London.
Featuring all of these drinks separately would be redundant, so this adaptation of Rumfustian will have to stand in for the lot. I’ve scaled it down to more manageable portions from Thomas’s recipe, which called for the yolks of twelve eggs and a quart of ale. I’ve also varied the means of preparation just a little, making it much like the Rum Flip (this page). The recipe here maintains the spirit of the original and pleasingly balances the sherry, gin, and ale.
According to Oxford Night Caps, “Such is the intoxicating property of this liquor, that none but hard drinkers will venture to regale themselves with it a second time.” Consider yourself warned.
12 oz. (360 ml) English-style ale
3 tbsp. Spiced Apple Puree, see recipe below
In a pot, heat the ale, apple puree, and sugar over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C). Remove from the heat and pour the mixture into a warmed mug, along with the bourbon (if using). Garnish with freshly grated cinnamon.
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C). Peel and roughly chop the apples into 1-inch (2.5-cm) cubes, trimming any fibrous bits near the core. Place them in a baking dish with the cider and cinnamon. Cover and bake for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until soft. Puree with a blender, mash by hand, or press the apples through a potato ricer to make a smooth puree. Store it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
To make the Wassaile a swinger.
That verse, providing the recipe for Lamb’s Wool, comes from the seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick’s “Twelfth Night; or, King and Queen,” a poem portraying wassail festivities. Indeed, Lamb’s Wool is “merely a variety of Wassail Bowl,” writes Richard Cook rather dismissively in Oxford Night Caps. Evidently the drink wasn’t very popular at Oxford; however, it did catch on elsewhere in England and Ireland.
The key ingredient in Lamb’s Wool is pulped roasted apples, which are added to warm ale with sugar and spices. The apple rises to the surface of the hot drink, gradually sinking as it cools. Traditionally it would be made in large batches for a group. I’ve scaled down the recipe so that it can be made à la minute for one, and changed the spice to cinnamon. I also suggest adding a shot of bourbon, because with cinnamon and roasted apples in the drink, it would be a crime not to. Omit the bourbon for a more authentic re-creation.
Some have speculated that the name Lamb’s Wool comes from the fluffy appearance of the apple puree on the surface of the drink. Richard Cook suggests that the name is a corruption of the Celtic la mas ubal, the “day of the apple fruit,” a winter celebration of the angel presiding over fruits and seeds. Regardless of where the name comes from, it’s an unusual drink that merits a revival, perfect for an autumn day when the temperature is falling, apples are ripe, and leaves are turning color. A rich, malty ale is what’s called for here. Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome is a seasonally appropriate choice.
In a pot, combine the cream and ale, then add the sugar, egg yolks and whites, and a generous grating of nutmeg. Whisk everything together thoroughly. Gently heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring as it warms. As it approaches boiling, the posset will thicken. Remove the pot from the heat before the mixture comes to a boil.
The posset can be served as-is in a bowl and ladled into warmed cups, or poured through a fine-mesh strainer to remove the curds. (Strained, it will yield about 2 cups/480 ml.)
If desired, pour about 1 ounce rum into a warmed mug and top with about 6 ounces (180 ml) Royal Posset.
With a modern cocktail renaissance that relentlessly raids the past for inspiration, might a revival of posset be the next big thing? Probably not, but making it is a fun way to step back in time.
Reader, I’m not going to lie. This is a weird drink. As if this chapter’s exploration of hot beer and eggs wasn’t already strange enough (see this page), the Posset takes things to the next level by adding milk or cream and intentionally making it curdle. Posset was meant to be as much a meal as a drink. Curdled milk doesn’t appeal to us today, but a few centuries ago it would have been too nutritious for frugal housekeepers to waste. Don’t be put off by the strange procedure. This drink is actually very enjoyable, with a richness comparable to eggnog.
The traditional way to serve this would be in a posset pot, a vessel with an open top and a spout that reaches to the bottom. This allowed a person to draw liquid from the bottom for drinking and to skim curds off the top for eating with a spoon. (The pot in the photo on this page, while not an authentic posset pot, approximates the setup.)
The drink was well known enough to appear in the plays of Shakespeare. With the help of posset, Lady Macbeth drugs the guards of King Duncan to put them to sleep while the couple commits murder. In Hamlet, posset finds use as a verb when the ghost of the deceased king describes the poison that took his life:
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine
Odd as it may sound to intentionally curdle milk, related “milk punch” enjoyed a century or so of popularity beginning in the mid-1700s. This was made by adding warm milk to punch; the milk would curdle when it reacted with juice from lemons or limes in the punch. The curds would then be strained off and the clear liquid bottled and stored. The milk eased the acidity of the citrus, and with the solids removed the bottled punch could be kept indefinitely.
Lacking access to an antique posset pot and having little desire to eat spoonfuls of curd, I like to take a similar approach by straining the curds out before drinking. Readers desiring the full oldtimey experience can consume it curds and all.
Posset was so common that The Practical Housewife of 1860 collected eleven different recipes for it. Ale Posset was simply boiled milk mixed with mild ale, toasted bread, sugar, and nutmeg. Others were more elaborate. Jelly Posset brought eggs and cinnamon into the mixture. Orange Posset called for Seville orange, sweet and bitter almonds, brandy, and wine. Sack Posset was made with Spanish wine and crumbled biscuits. These possets were accompanied by various recipes for caudles, flips, and purls. Warm, nourishing beer drinks were prepared in seemingly endless variety.
I’m partial to the Royal Posset, which combines ale with rich, heavy cream. It’s a mild drink, so although it’s not in the original recipe, I like adding a good English-style rum to it as well. Pusser’s does nicely.
8 oz. (240 ml) Wort, see recipe below
In a pot, heat the wort over medium heat to between 140 and 150°F (60 to 65°C). Pour it into a warmed mug and add the Scotch. Top with whipped cream, if desired.
2 lbs. (910 g) two-row pale malt, milled
1 lb. (455 g) crystal 20L malt, milled, see Note
Warm an insulated cooler with hot water. In a pot, heat the water over medium or high heat to between 165 and 170°F (70 to 75°C). Place both malts in a fine-mesh bag. Empty the cooler, then pour the heated water into it. Lower the mesh bag into the water, gathering the top so that the grain does not spill out. Stir it with a large spoon to ensure that there are no dry clumps of grain. Probe the mixture with a thermometer, making sure it reaches at least 150°F (65°C). If it hasn’t, add a small amount of boiling water to bring up its temperature. Seal the cooler and allow the grains to steep for 45 minutes.
Remove the grain bag, squeezing gently to extract the liquid, and pour the wort into a pot. Bring it to a boil on the stove, allowing the liquid to reduce to between 7 and 8 cups (1.7 to 2 L) of liquid. The more it reduces, the more concentrated and sweet the wort will become. Taste frequently; it should end up sweet and malty, but not cloying. If not used immediately, the wort can be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days.
Makes 7 to 8 cups (1.7 to 2 L)
Note: The “20L” refers to degree of roast.
This is the only drink in the book that doesn’t use beer. Instead it uses wort, the liquid extraction of barley that turns into beer after yeast, hops, and time do their work. It’s hot, sweet, and malty, and when spiked with Scotch it becomes absolutely delicious. Upon trying this Hot Scotchy for the first time, beer writer Jeff Alworth proclaimed it, with perhaps just a hint of exaggeration, “the finest beverage known to man.”
The drink has floated under the radar until now, mainly because beer brewers and their friends were the only ones able to drink it. Stores sell beer, not wort (although I have this dream that an entrepreneurial Portlandian will someday open a truck dispensing hot wort and mini Scotch bottles). To make wort, you pretty much have to go all-in on making beer. That’s a lot of effort just to have a cocktail.
My friend Ezra Johnson-Greenough introduced me to the drink and helped arrange for Yetta Vorobik to serve it at the Hop and Vine with wort borrowed from Upright Brewing. When we needed more wort to feature it at one of our Brewing Up Cocktails events, Ezra scaled down the Upright recipe for use at the bar. Finally, with this book coming into print, Ezra and I figured out a way to make reasonable quantities of wort at home using standard kitchen tools and malted barley purchased from a home-brew store. It’s much easier, and requires much less specialized gear, than becoming a full-on homebrewer.
Even so, having a basic knowledge of how beer is brewed will help you with this recipe. To make beer, the starches in barley malt have to be converted into sugar; this is done by steeping the grains in hot water, a process known as mashing. After mashing, the spent grains are strained off and the liquid left behind is wort. Brewers would boil this and add hops and yeast to make beer. Making wort for a Hot Scotchy, we get to skip those steps.
If you were making beer, care would be taken to achieve just the right extraction. This recipe requires a lot less precision, because we’re not turning it into a finished beer. We’re just heating up the malty liquid and adding Scotch.
The recipe here is pretty basic. Ezra notes that it could be tweaked with the use of other grains, such as adding some chocolate malt for a roasty nuttiness. The real key is making sure that the mash hits at least 150°F (65°C) to ensure the conversion of the starches into sugar.
Choosing the right Scotch is a matter of preference. I like a good blend or an unpeated single malt, like Macallan. A peaty Islay malt like Ardbeg will take the drink in a smoky direction. Yetta likes to top the drink with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, a decadent and tasty addition.
The malt and fine-mesh bag needed for the wort recipe can be purchased at any homebrew store, where they will also mill the grain.
1 (750-ml) bottle Rodenbach Grand Cru
Combine all the ingredients except the aquavit, maraschino, and orange wheels in a pot. Heat the mixture over medium heat to about 140°F (60°C), cover the pot, and reduce the heat to very low. Allow the mixture to infuse for about 10 minutes. Remove the spices, if desired, pour in the aquavit and maraschino, and ladle the Hot Bruin into warmed mugs. Garnish each drink with an orange wheel.
Contemporary warm beer cocktails are few and far between. One of the few I’ve come across is the Glueh Kriek from Cascade Brewing, a Portland brewery specializing in sour barrel-aged beers. They combine their aged, cherryflavored sour ale with winter spices and serve it hot, to very good effect. I’ve heard of Belgian breweries making similar ales and have come across references to Calibou, an old warm drink made with lambic, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and eggs, although I’m not aware of anyone serving it in modern times.
These drinks inspired me to take my own shot at making a modern hot beer cocktail. Rather than a fruit lambic, I reached for Flanders brown ale, a sour style originating from the Flemish region of Belgium. The brand called for here, Rodenbach Grand Cru, is a blend of barrel-aged and new ale, and is less assertively tart than some other beers in this style. (The classic Rodenbach contains a lower proportion of aged beer but can also be used in this drink.) I use the barrel-aged Linie aquavit from Norway as the primary spirit, although other brands of aquavit can certainly be substituted.
