Imbibe! (19 page)

Before the Cocktail, there was the Toddy—or the Sling—or the Julep—or the Sangaree. Or anything else you wanted to call a glass of beverage alcohol with a little sugar in it, a little water if needed, and maybe a scrape of nutmeg over the top or a sprig or two of mint stuck in the glass.

The very simplicity of these drinks led to a good deal of confusion between them, particularly when regional and national differences in nomenclature are factored in (a Yankee’s Sling, an Englishman’s Toddy, and an Irishman’s Skin might be made in the exact same way). Indeed, the three editions of Jerry Thomas’s book give a sheaf of overlapping recipes for Toddies and Slings in particular that differ only in the temperature of the H
₂
O, the choice of base spirit, and the presence and absence of nutmeg.
⁴

The works of his contemporaries only add to the confusion. While the general rule of this book is to present definitive, original recipes in unmodified form, if ever there’s a place to break it, this is it. Since it’s fair to say that, in general (although, ironically, not in Jerry Thomas’s book), Toddy was perceived as a hot drink that you could also make cold, and Sling as a cold one that you could also make hot, I’ve used that as a sort of stick with which to thresh this large and incestuous family of drinks out into two master recipes, a Hot Toddy and a Cold Sling, each based on Jerry Thomas’s 1862 edition but incorporating some of the handy hints from elsewhere. If you want a Cold Toddy or a Hot Sling, just make a Cold Sling or a Hot Toddy and change the name, manipulating the nutmeg
ad libitum
.

There are a few major variations, including the popular Sangaree, that achieved a life of their own; I’ve allowed them to roam free, below.

Some time at the beginning of the 1750s, the great Early American portrait painter Charles Willson Peale—then a lad of twelve or so—put a vital question to a local Annapolis doctor. “What is the best drink for health?” The doctor, a gentleman of Scottish extraction, did not hem or haw. “Toddy, mun. The spirit must have something to act on, and therefore acts on the sugar and does nae injury to the stomach.” It’s a charming theory, anyway; how nice if it were true (another round of Piña Coladas over here, Ramon!). But whatever its benignity, Toddy hot in the winter and cold in the summer was one of the invariables of American drinking
from the middle of the eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth—and, in some places, beyond. When I was a child, which was not so long ago as all that (we had
Batman
on the TV and Johnnie Eagle plastic M-14s to shoot our little friends with), my New England-born mother would, in circumstances of extreme chill, administer Toddy to my brother and me under the guise of Hot Buttered Rum. It was strictly medicinal, of course, and very much on the weak side, but nonetheless.

Toddy—aka Sling, Sangaree, Skin, or Bombo, all more or less the same thing—is a simple drink in the same way a tripod is a simple device: Remove one leg and it cannot stand, set it up properly and it will hold the whole weight of the world. This mixture of spirits, hot or cold water, sugar, and perhaps a scraping of nutmeg is the irreducible minimum of true mixology. Take away any ingredient and you’re left with something less than a mixed drink. Except the nutmeg, that is—just as had occurred with the Bowl of Punch, the element of spice was soon recognized as inessential. But without the sugar, it’s just spirits and water. Sure, you can fit this out with a fancy name—call it a Grog or a Highball—but it’s still just watered booze. Without the water, it’s essentially a liqueur (provided you can get the sugar to dissolve in the first place), and not fit for serious drinking. And without the spirits—well, no. But get everything right (and Lord knows it’s easy enough) and it’s a drink all right. Indeed, like all truly great drinks, it’s sometimes a good deal more than that.

Under the proper circumstances, a Hot Toddy—particularly one constructed upon a foundation of good Highland malt whisky—is one of the clearest signs I know that there is a providential plan to the universe. Of course, those circumstances include things like faulty central heating, dripping eaves, gray mists, chill drafts, and moth-eaten cardigan sweaters, all of which are in short supply in modern American life. But it’s almost worth artificially creating them just to feel the blissful warmth seeping farther into every muscle and nerve with each sip until, as far as your body is concerned, you’re laying out on the Grand Anse beach in Grenada, not hunched against a cold and cutting nor’ easter. The old days were hard, but the people who lived them found ways of making them tolerable.

Apparently of Scottish origin (although its print debut is found in a July 1750 issue of the
Boston Weekly Post Boy
), the “fashionable” Toddy—as the Newport, Rhode Island,
Mercury
dubbed it in 1764—was a fixture of American tippling for a century or more. It didn’t hurt that, unlike Punch, the Toddy required no perishable ingredients or complicated formulae. Rum (or whiskey if you were out on the frontier, brandy if you were posh, applejack if you were from New Jersey, gin if you were of African or Dutch extraction, etc.). As much sugar as you liked, or had—no worries here about balancing out the acidity of lemons or limes. Water, hot or cold. If you had some nutmeg, fine; if not, fine, too. If there was no sugar, honey or even blackstrap molasses would do. You could make it strong or you could make it weak and sip it all day, as John Ferdinand Smyth found the Virginia planters doing in the 1780s. You could make it one glass or mug at a time, or—well, consider the way Pennsylvanian Joseph Price spent May 11, 1802: “had 3 Pints Whis[key], they Complaind of Cold very much, at Mothers Got a bowl hot Toddy then they Came home with me and I Made them 2 Bowls, made their harts Glad & away they went.” (Who’s “they”? He never does tell us; perhaps he should’ve waited until May 12 to update his diary.) In fact, the first published recipe for Toddy that I’ve been able to find, the one in Samuel Stearns’s 1801
American Herbal
, makes a hefty quart of the stuff. One hopes that that wasn’t intended for one person.

By Jerry Thomas’s day, the Toddy had settled into a comfortable middle age. The size was reduced to what could comfortably fit in one hand, the sugar moved up the social scale to pure white, and, while there were a few holdouts in New England who plumped for Medford rum and some ethnics who went for gin (with the pot-stilled, whiskeylike Hollands, this is decidedly more pleasant than it sounds), most people preferred to stoke their Toddies with good domestic rye or, preferably, bourbon (some felt rye “doesn’t suit” as well in hot drinks), or even better, imported French brandy. In fact, Brandy Toddy was often prescribed by doctors for its medicinal value (some ideas die hard).

Then, in the late 1870s, for whatever reason—the verminous phylloxera’s devastation of the vineyards of France, increasing Anglophilia, a sudden and uncharacteristic onrush of good sense—America at large discovered what a few had always known: that by far the best spirit in a Hot Toddy is pure Scotch whisky. Under the guise of Hot Scotch, the Hibernian version of the Toddy quickly rose to near-universal popularity as the sovereign remedy for a frosty night; indeed, until the golf-and-Scotch Highball craze of the 1890s it was just about the only way Scotch whisky was drunk in America. Judging by the contents of his bar’s cellar, which included barrels of a nice fifteen-year-old Caol Isla malt, Jerry Thomas was an early adopter (Andrew Johnson was another, although I don’t know if he took it up pre- or post-impeachment). Mark Twain came later to it, but made up for the delay by his regular devotion (according to his friend William Dean Howells, for years he took it before bedtime, deeming it “the only soporific worth considering”; in an age without benzodiazepines, he wasn’t wrong). The only dissenters were the Irish-Americans, who maintained, like the “old rounder” quoted in an Ohio paper in 1888, that “Irish whisky can stand hot water better than any other under the sun.”

That rounder was onto something. In the 1880s, you see, the old, unblended Scottish malt whisky, made in a traditional copper pot still with its kettle and gooseneck and spiral condensing worm, was being edged out by blended Scotch, wherein the malt was cut by the much lighter and purer stuff that the new “patent” stills were turning out, while the Americans had switched to mostly patent-still production, as had some rum distillers. The Irish, however, were still selling their whiskey unblended. This might seem a bit technical, but it’s anything but: after years of experience with the Hot Toddy, I’ve found that the one sure secret to success is to use pot-stilled spirits in it. The heavier body they possess gives the drink a silky texture that is hard to resist.

 

 

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
Again, pot-stilled spirits are essential here. Cognac or single-malt Scotch: always (this is an excellent use for a very peaty Scotch, particularly if it’s at cask strength). Dark rum, Irish whiskey, and Hollands: on a case-by-case basis (Redbreast Irish whiskey is pure pot-still, and fabulous here). Bourbon and rye: well, they’re kind of a special case, because they almost always come out of a patent still, but at a lower proof than usual (and hence with a heavier body); in fact, some of them have just the right thickness you need (Woodford Reserve is a particular favorite here, but then again, it’s supposed to be part pot-still.). Vodka, London Dry gin, etc.: No. Tequila: It certainly might work, but you go first.

As for the sugar, you’ve got options here, too. For one thing, you can do without, as Mark Twain liked to (it was a Western thing). I don’t recommend that; not so much because I like a sweeter drink, but because the sugar adds thickness, and a thin Toddy is a sad Toddy. Some modern mixologists suggest sweetening Whisky Toddies with honey; personally, I think it clashes with the malt. Certainly the Professor and his colleagues never call for anything but sugar. Generally, this would have been the standard quick-dissolving powdered white sugar, but the presence of boiling water means that other kinds will work as well. I favor Demerara or raw sugar in my Toddies—they’re a little less sweet and a little more rich and complex (you can also get Demerara in cubes or, even better, irregular little lumps that just scream out “authentic”).

Water. The ideal proportion seems to be about one part spirit to one and a half to two parts water. Keep it as hot as possible. If you prefer nutmeg on your Toddy, well, according to the Professor that’s a Sling. His 1887 reviser, however, disagrees; myself, I find nutmeg works well with rum, brandy, or Hollands, but not so well with whisky. When you do use it, grate it fresh. Never use the stuff in a jar; you might as well be following the jocular (I hope) advice the British traveler J. E. Alexander gave in 1833: “If there is no nutmeg convenient, a scrape or two of the mudler (wooden sugar-breaker) will answer the purpose.”

NOTES ON EXECUTION:
As he so often did, the 1887 reviser added clear and useful instructions: “First rinse the glass with hot water, put in the sugar, fill the glass half-full of boiling water, add the [spirits] and stir. Serve with a spoon.” If you’re using a glass, make sure it’s a heavy, tempered one. In general, I prefer a mug, which will keep the drink warm longer (try not to use a “World’s Best Dad” mug or other such cultural detritus; it cheapens the effect). If you’ve got a toddy-stick, now’s the time to use it. Beyond that, there’s little to say. If you like lemon peel in yours, that’s a
Skin
(page 144).