The longstanding viral “One Hot Cheeto would kill a Victorian child” meme has been recently debunked by an also-viral Instagram reel by @bombasticnoa. As the poster smartly points out, “No it wouldn’t! He works in the mines! From the age of six he works in the mines, from dawn till dusk! The doctor prescribed him opium for a tummy ache! Be realistic.” The Washingtons served in the White House from 1789 to 1797 – which predates the Victorian era (1820-1914) by several decades — and the point remains: Foodies of the 1700s had the constitution (pun intended) to enjoy the finer things in life. A snack table at the Washingtons’ home in Mount Vernon wouldn’t be complete without a bowl of bold rum punch, Martha Washington’s all-time favorite drink.
Per the lore, well-known entertainer Martha Washington first got her penchant for hosting from her mother, who created the rum punch recipe that Martha grew to love and serve at her own famous parties.In fact, the official website of George Washington’s Mount Vernon provides a recipe crafted by the Distilled Spirits Council and bartending legend Dale DeGroff, designed to mimic what Martha would have been sipping. By their count, her punch was a combination of white rum, dark rum, orange curaçao, simple syrup, lemons, oranges, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. To assemble, she muddled the fresh fruit with the spices and simple syrup, then added in the spirits, water, and strained the mixture through a colander into a clarified punch.
America’s First First Lady was all about spiced rum punch
Martha Washington’s proclivity toward rum punch wasn’t only a sentimental tie to her mother’s recipe. According to an estimate via the Mount Vernon site, “Colonists consumed 3.7 gallons [of rum] annually per head by the time of the American Revolution.” George Washington himself ran one of the largest distilleries in the country at the time, so it isn’t unlikely that the rum used in Martha’s punch was distilled by her husband.
From the early 1600s through the late 1700s, rum outpaced whiskey as the most popular spirit in America.Rum is distilled from molasses, a base ingredient widely available to Colonial Americans as an affordable bulk ingredient. Even though rum itself was costly, folks without a lot of money could make it by purchasing the molasses, which flowed in abundant supply once America entered into trade with sugar growers in the West Indies.
During the years when Martha Washington would have been on the prominent political stage, rum functioned as a daily social staple and a pillar of the economy in the New England colonies. At times, it was even used as currency in place of paper money. Fourth First Lady Dolley Madison’s favorite cocktail (whiskey sour) reflects the shifting national preference toward American grain-based spirits in the 1800s. Still, centuries later, our rum punch for a crowd recipe invites modern bon vivants to take a cue from the Founding Mother, bust out the crystal punch bowl, and kick it Colonial style.
