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THE GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION
ing in a shop. Scald, take off skins, slice, and dredge with plenty of
confectioner's sugar, and let them marinate in their own sweet juices
for two hours. First pour in a bottle of Rhine or Moselle wine, then a
bottle of good Burgundy or claret. Put in the ice box, and just before
serving uncork a bottle of iced champagne. Put an
8"
cube of ice in
the bowl, and pour over.... To our way of thinking a couple of
ounces of drier type apricot or peach brandy couldn't hurt this thought
a mite.
CHARLESTON'S ST. CECELIA SOCIETY PUNCH
Speaking of social niceties, for a good many generations no one in
Tidewater South Carolina really mattered unless his name appeared
on the annual ball list of St. Cecelia. Consequently it gradually be–
came a fixed matter of family and the bluest of blood lines. Bank
balances did not count as they did in New York's
400.
Although the
membership list has been expanded now and then along more sanely
liberal lines, here is a Society started two hundred / ears ago, forty
years before our Declaration of Independence
w~/
conceived, and
whose prestige and power was sb great that when ,the welkin rang in
ancient Hibernian Hall, not one single newspaper ever mentioned a
bit of what took place. . . .
Gentlemenwe~ntlemen
in those days,
and the over-famed "freedom of the press" didn't pry into their social
affairs, as they do nowadays with certain visible folk like, say, Ex–
King Edward VIII. Furthermore the music plays behind a lace cur–
tain, and ladies don't go to
la salle des dames
unchaperoned!
Peach or apricot brandy,
1
fifth;
peach is traditional
Jamaica rum,
1
pint; and get
good old rum
Dry champagne, 4 quarts
Cognac brandy,
1
bottle
Sugar, 3 cups
Fresh pineapple,
I
ripe one,
sliced fine and cored
Lemons or limes, 6 lemons or
IO
li111es, sliced thin
Green tea,
1
quart
Club soda, or other good spar–
.kling water,
2
quarts total
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