Egg Rum and Egg Brandy
Installment VI
1793 Montogmery Store Daybook
On Monday May 20, 1793, there were a number of special
alcohol purchases at the Montgomery Store including postmaster Moses Dow’s 1
quart of Mallago (Malaga) wine, a glass of ginn [sic] and of particular
interest, one 1/2 bowl of egg rum.
A few days earlier the purchase of “egg brandy” was noted. According to food historians, this
concoction was related to our contemporary eggnog, being a drink of egg, wine
and milk/cream with many historic European antecedents.
Egg
brandy or egg rum as it was recorded in the Daybook, was in Colonial America
somewhat different than its British counterpart in that it substituted the British
use of wine for brandy or rum. It was quite popular in the Colonies, especially
in the colder parts of the region where the egg beverage (egg, cream or fresh
milk and brandy or rum) was rich, tasty, filling and was usually flavored with
nutmeg or allspice. In a rural area like Haverhill, the ingredients – fresh
cream and eggs, brandy or rum and spices-- would have been readily available.
Given the fact that this was served at the Store, it is likely that it was
served cold and not warm such as a posset which required heating and carefully
balanced ingredients, as well as appropriate ceramic serving vessels,
frequently with a spout.
While
it might seem too heavy for serving in late May by contemporary tastes, it was
no doubt much lighter in concentration. However, of particular importance in
the selection of this variant of “eggnog” was the fact that weather reports for
May of 1793 reveal that it was the second coldest May to be recorded (in the North
American Review, for example) until the famous cold of 1816, which many
referred to as the year “without summer.”
The unusual cold of April and May, which reportedly froze buds and kept
the ground hard well past usual planting dates, would have also changed patterns
of trade, travel, purchase and even the number of ventures out of doors to the
Store. The weather, not surprisingly, changed the routine of daily life not
only in Haverhill but throughout New England.
Although
contemporary accounts appear not to list an egg brandy or rum (most likely
because it was an understood, standard beverage) there was a close relationship
between an eggnog and a syllabub. The creation of a syllabub required time and
careful beating of eggs and cream, whereas the preparation of this “egg rum or
brandy” one can easily imagine being created in the store along with the
commonly mentioned bowl of grog
(grog was also a rum –based beverage, frequently mixed with other
spirits or citrus or other juices or diluted.).
Comparative Syllabub Recipes
To make whipt syllabubs
Take a quart of thick cream, and half a pint of sack, the juice
of two Seville oranges, or lemons; grate in the peel of two lemons; half a
pound of double-refined sugar, pour it into a broad earthen pan, and whisk it
well; but first sweeten some red wine, or sack, and fill your glasses as full
as you chuse; then as the froth rises take it off with a spoon, and lay it
carefully into your glasses, till they are as full as it will hold.
From
Charles Carter The London and Country Cook (London: 1749)
A Whipt Syllabub
Take two
porringers of cream and one of white wine, grate in the skin of a lemon, take
the whites of three eggs, sweeten it to your taste, then whip it with a whisk,
take off the froth as it rises and put into your syllabub glasses of pots, and
they are fit for use.
From
Amelia Simmons American Cookery: or the Art of Dressing Viands,
Poultry….Adapted to this Country and All Grades of Life (Albany, 1796)
Further
information on the derivation of the term “egg nog” may be found on numerous
historic food ways websites and in reproductions of historic cookbooks such as
that of Amelia Simmons by Applewood Books.
The second floor retains the elegant cove of the ballroom, once a common feature in the Haverhill houses and taverns which accommodated gatherings during the twice annual court weeks. The second floor ballroom was an uninterrupted expanse, but it could be easily divided with the hinged doors shown above, intact. 
