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THE MIXICOLOGIST.
159
CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.
Let your utensils be clean, and your ingredients of
first-rate quality, and, unless you have someone very
trustworthy and reliable, take the matter in hand your
self; for nothing is so annoying to the host, or so un
palatable to the guests, as a badly compounded cup.
In order that the magnitude of this important business
may be fully understood and properly estimated, we
will transfer some of the excellent aphoristic remarks of
the illustrious Billy Dawson (though we have not the
least idea who he was), whose illustrisity consisted in
being the only man who could brew punch. This is
his testimony: "The man who sees, does, or thinks of
anything while he is making Punch, may as well look
for the Northwest Passage on Mutton Hill. A man
can never make good Punch unless he is satisfied, nay,
positive, that no man breathing can make better. I can
and do make good Punch, because I do nothing else;
and this is my way of doing it. I retire to a solitary
corner, with my ingredients ready sorted; they are as
follows, and I mix them in the order they are here
written: Sugar, twelve tolerable lumps; hot water,one
pint; lemons, two, the juice and peel; old Jamaica rum,
two gills; brandy, one gill; porter or stout, half a gill;
arrack, a slight dash. I allow myself five minutes to
make a bowl on the foregoing proportions, carefully
stirring the mixture as I furnish the ingredients until it
actually foams; and then. Kangaroos! how beautiful it
is!!" If, however, for convenience, you place the
matter in the hands of your domestic, I would advise