A Drink for the Season...and The Ages

New England Almanac, 1704 December-

"The days are short, the weather's cold, By tavern fires, tales are told. Some ask for dram when first come in, others with flip and bounce begin."

A flip was a colonial mixed drink first mentioned in New England, 1690. The drink was very popular in Colonial America, as illustrated by Washington's expense reports. General Isreal Putman, famed leader of the Bunker Hill Battle, had his own personal rules for mixing. John Adams was reported to have said, "if you spent the evening in a tavern, you found it full of people drinking drams of flip, carousing, and swearing."


Abbott's Tavern at Holden, Massachusetts Bill 1763-

"Mug New England Flip . . . . . 9d.


Mug West India Flip . . . . . 11d.

Lodging per night . . . . . 3d.

Pot luck per meal . . . . . 8d.


Boarding commons Men . . . . . 4s. 8d.

Boarding commons Weomen . . . 2s."

Two Recipes of many-

1. "Keep grated Ginger and Nutmeg with a fine dried Lemon Peel rubbed together in a Mortar. To make a quart of Flip: Put the Ale on the Fire to warm, and beat up three or four Eggs with four ounces of moist Sugar, a teaspoonful of grated Nutmeg or Ginger, and a Quartern of good old Rum or Brandy. When the Ale is near to boil, put it into one pitcher, and the Rum and Eggs, etc., into another: turn it from one Pitcher to another till it is as smooth as cream. To heat plunge in the red hot Loggerhead or Poker. This quantity is styled One Yard of Flannel." 

2. "A great pewter mug or earthen pitcher filled two-thirds full of strong beer; sweetened with sugar, molasses, or dried pumpkin, according to individual taste or capabilities; and flavored with `a dash' -about a gill- of New England rum. Into this mixture a red hot loggerhead, made of iron and heated in the fire, was thrust."

A quartern is a quarter of a gill, which is about the "dash" of rum." 

The flip with eggs was often called a "Bellowstop".  Unfortunately, loggerheads are tough to come by so I will be using a poker.

James Lowell 1868-

"Where dozed a fire of beechen logs that bred Strange fancies in its embers golden dred, And nursed the loggerhead, whose hissing dip, timed by wise instinct, creamed the bowl of flip”

Happy Fat Tuesday

Enjoy! We'll be trying the pancakes tonight, let you know how they go.

From Jason Kottke's Blog

"After discovering the recipe for Robie's Buttermilk Flapjacks in a magazine a year or two ago, my wife has been making them for breakfast most Saturdays and they are, no foolin', the best pancakes I've ever eaten. They are fluffy and moist and delicious. Here's what you do.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, whisk, set aside:

2 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine salt

Combine the wet ingredients in a second bowl, whisk:

2 cups buttermilk
4 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 beaten eggs

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until just combined. Fry in a pan with butter. Top with maple syrup and devour.

Don't skimp on the ingredients here. Use real butter and real vanilla extract, but especially real maple syrup and real buttermilk. Depending on where you live/shop, actual buttermilk might be difficult to find. The term "buttermilk" formerly referred to the liquid left behind after churning butter but nowadays refers to a cultured milk product not unlike drinkable yogurt. The only real buttermilk we've been able to find (in VT and MA) is Kate's Real Buttermilk; even at the NYC Greenmarket, the best you can find is cultured buttermilk made with whole milk. At least attempt to avoid most grocery store buttermilk; it's made from skim milk with added thickeners and such, basically buttermilk without any richness, which is, like, what's the point? Oh, and no powdered buttermilk either...it messes with the texture too much. The point is, these are buttermilk pancakes and they taste best with the best buttermilk you can get your mitts on."