1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

I04 THE FLOWING BOWL the less water the better. A very old way of concocting it is to melt the sugar within the tumbler (which should be covered, pro tern.) with the smallest quantity of water sufficient for the purpose, the thin lemon-rind having been previously added. Then comes the whisky; " and," according to the old formula, " the laste dhrop o' wather " added atop of the " crathur " will spoil the punch. But in all English works in which punch has been mentioned—previous to the early seventies, at all events—by the active ingredients of punch should be understood either rum, brandy, or gin. '•'•English Punch" says a writer of our own time, " is,as regards the spirit, mostly of two kinds —brandy and rum, mixed in proportions which must be left to taste. The rum generally predominates. The acid is nearly always lemon juice. The spice is nearly always lemon-peel, but sometimes tea-leaf"— now marry come up !—"sometimes nutmeg ; and as for the sugar and the water they explain them selves." The Scotch make toddy in very much the same way as the Irish concoct their punch. But Glasgow Punchy according to John Gibson Lockhart, was com pounded with the coldest spring-water—a com modity which would seem to be growing some what scarce in Caledonia —for the purpose of punch-making, at all events.