Three Victorian-Era Cocktails for Your Next Party

by Evelyn Maguire

The Victorian Era was an age renowned for its industrialization, its literature, and burgeoning science — but, perhaps most importantly, it was also known as the Golden Age of Cocktails. In both Great Britain and the post–Civil War United States, technological advancements were beginning to offer more and more people leisure time, and what comes with leisure if not a finely crafted beverage?

Prior to this so-called Golden Age of mixology, common drinks of the time — aside from the obvious wine, beer, and straight liquors — included punches for warmer months and spiced hot drinks such as mulled wine for the colder nights of the year. The earliest known printing of the word cocktail occurred in 1806 and, according to the New York paper The Balance and Colombian Repository, cocktails were “supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion, in as much as it renders the heart stout and bold, at the same time that it fuddles the head.”

So what kind of drinks were rendering the heart stout and bold?

Known as the “Father of American Mixology,” New Yorker Jerry Thomas rose to prominence in the 1860s with the publication of The Bartender’s Guide: a Complete Cyclopedia of Plain and Fancy Drinks, which served as a recipe book for inventive and bold cocktails that was sure to knock the socks off those punch-drinking floosies of yesteryear.

I’ve compiled some of his iconic creations below — and if anyone takes a stab at crafting these delightful brews, tell me in the comment section how they are!

1. Sleeper

½ cup of rum

2 teaspoons of sugar

2 egg yolks

1 cup of hot water

boiled with: 6 cloves, 6 coriander seeds, a pinch of cinnamon.

To a gill of old rum (approx. ½ cup) add one ounce of sugar, two yolks of eggs, and the juice of half a lemon; boil half a pint of water with six cloves, six coriander-seeds, and a bit of cinnamon; whisk all together, and strain into a tumbler.

2. White Tiger’s Milk

¼ cup applejack

½ do. peach brandy

½ teaspoon of aromatic tincture

Sweeten with white sugar to taste

The white of an egg beaten to a stiff foam

1 quart pure milk

Mix all of the above into the milk, and sprinkle with nutmeg.

3. Knickerbocker

A lime or lemon, squeeze out the juice and add rind to glass

2 teaspoons of raspberry syrup

1 wine-glass full of Santa Cruz rum.

½ teaspoon of Curaçao

Cool with shaved ice; shake it up well and ornament with berries in season.