sif@rabbit.UUCP (07/06/83)
The following is from George Saintsbury's classic "Notes on a Cellar-Book",
ca 1920. A fine example of overblown prose.
A friend tried the Bishop recipe a few years ago using 1970 Taylor Vintage Port
and reports it works fine.
Bishop itself would, from books, appear to have been in
former days very specially an Oxford drink, but it certainly was not
common there in my time. In fact, on the only occasion on which I
did see and taste it, I made it myself in my own rooms, for joint
consumption with a friend (not Creighton), who, as a matter of
fact, actually did become a bishop later. It is, as I have found
more people not know than know in this ghastly thin-faced time of
ours, simply mulled port. You take a bottle of that noble liquor and
put it in a saucepan, adding as much or as little water as you can
reconcile to your taste and conscience, an orange cut in half (I
believe some people squeeze it slightly), and plenty of cloves (you
may stick them in the orange if you have a mind). Sugar or no sugar
at discretion, and with regard to the character of the wine. Put
it on the fire, and as soon as it is warm, and begins to steam, light
it. The flames will be of an imposingly infernal colour, quite
different from the light blue flicker of spirits or of claret mulled.
Before it has burned too long pour it into a bowl, and drink it as
hot as you like. It is an excellent liquor, and I have found it
quite popular with ladies. I think it is said (but I have not the book
at hand) to have played the mischief with Alaric Tudor, the
sorriest, though not the most disagreeable, of "The Three Clerks";
but then it was made of public-house port, which was probably half
elder wine and half potato spirit.
Of its titular superiors, `Cardinal' and `Pope', the former is
only a rather silly name for mulled claret, while `Pope', i.e.
mulled burgundy, is Anti-christian, from no mere Protestant point of
view. No burgundy is really suitable for mulling, while to mull
good burgundy is a capital crime. It is quite different with vin brule,
a very popular beverage in Old France, and a regular Christmas and New
Year tradition in the Channel Islands. When made of an unpretentious
Bordeaux, it wants no dilution, of course, and if it is fairly stout
wine, should want no fortifying. Some sugar it will certainly
want, not to correct acidity, but to fill out body and flavour; a
cloved and cloven lemon instead of the orange of bishop, a saucepan,
a fire, and goblets. It will flame with less ghastly gorgeousness
than the stronger liquor, but prettily enough, and it is exceedingly
grateful and comforting. Indeed, virtues which it is not lawful to
mention are attributed to it in Old French literature of the
Pantagruelist variety.