Red Hot Poker Cocktail

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The New York cocktail laboratory Booker and Dax has brought back the practice of heating beer cocktails with red-hot pokers. In London, a bar called Purl gets its name from a warm ale-and-gin. A flip is a cocktail containing egg (whole egg or just yolk), sugar and a spirit or fortified wine. They are similar to Egg Nogs but while Egg Nogs contain milk or cream, Flips don't. Flips were originally served hot, often warmed with a hot poker. Today they are mostly served cold, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled coupe or wine glass, usually garnished with a dusting of nutmeg. With the general availability of red-hot loggerhead pokers in the modern bar being somewhat limited, the Flip has evolved since then into what it is today, a shaken cocktail consisting of a spirit. Red Hot Passion (Cocktail) Amaretto, Bourbon Whiskey, Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice, Sloe Gin, Southern Comfort, Triple Sec. Sex Lies and Video Poker (Cocktail. If you're looking for a fun way to mix your hot buttered rum, try using a red hot poker. The heat naturally melds all the flavors together, creating a luscious, steaming drink. It is great for camping and can be used for caramelizing dark beer, too. It takes some patience, so go slowly and take care not to burn yourself.

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Pamela Sambrook, Country House Brewing in England, 1500-1900 from Amazon.com or from Amazon UK

Flip, in those days, was a favourite and fashionable liquor, especially among the New England settlers..Put into a quart of beer a tablespoonful of brown sugar, warm it thoroughly by stirring it round with a red hot poker; add from a gill to half a pint of old Antigua rum; grate on half a nutmeg; our grandfathers thought it a capital beverage.
Charles Miner, History of Wyoming, 1845

Mary Gaston, Antique Brass & Copper from Amazon.com or from Amazon UK

Gregg Smith, Beer in America: The Early Years--1587-1840, from Amazon

The English labourer, according to my experience, prefers to warm his supper ale with a red-hot poker.
Walter Johnson, Folk Memory, 1908

.those good old days when it was thought best to heat the poker red hot before plunging it into the mugs of flip. This heating of the poker has been disapproved of late years, but I do not know on what grounds; if one is to drink bitters and gins and the like..I do not know why one should not make them palatable and heat them with his own poker.
Charles Dudley Warner, Backlog Studies, 1872

Warming beer and mulling ale at the fireside - tin and copper mullers, hot pokers or flip-irons

In this photo* of a 1790s English kitchen are two different brass containers for warming beer. If you want to try spotting them yourself before reading on, look on the wall to the right of the fireplace and on the mantelshelf. Attractive copper antiques now - but once they were used for warming and mulling ale. Why was beer warmed? And how?

In England and other beer-drinking countries warm ale was a popular winter drink when heated on its own or mulled with spice and sugar. Many people also thought ale was healthier drunk warm. And then there was a fondness for sweetened warm ale with nutmeg. If you added a measure of rum or brandy the mixture was called flip, and was popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

..when I did always drink cold beer..I was very often troubled with exceeding pain in the head..also with stomach-ache, tooth-ache, cough, cold, and many other rheumatic diseases. But since my drinking my beer (small or strong) actually as hot as blood, I have never been troubled with any of the former diseases, but have always continued in very good health constantly..
F.W., A Treatise of Warm Beer, 1641

In England, although mulled ale was popular, and there were recipes for flip in cookery books, it was sometimes seen as slightly disreputable, associated with boisterous sailors from the 17th century on.** 19th century writers also thought it suitable for the lower classes at Christmas. There doesn't seem to have been this feeling amongst settlers in America. Flip is mentioned in the memoirs of respectable New Englanders.

Flip, a sort of Sailor's Drink, made of Ale, Brandy, and Sugar.
Nathan Bailey, An universal etymological English dictionary, 1721

Connecticut, 1820s: The boys heated the flip-irons and passed around the cider and flip, while Aunt Esther and the daughters were as busy in serving the doughnuts, cake, and cheese.
Wm C Beecher and Rev. Samuel Scoville, A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 1888

Men drinking in an inn or at home by the hearth didn't necessarily want to wait for someone in the kitchen to warm up ale or flip in a pan. They used a hot poker from the fire. You can see this re-created, complete with hissing sound effects, in A Man for All Seasons when Cromwell sticks a poker into a tall pewter tankard of ale before giving it to a visitor. Slightly more hygienic, and avoiding any burnt taste, were the flip-irons set aside for warming drinks. They may have gone from jug to jug, tankard to tankard, but at least they didn't have ash on. Some had rounded heads, like the iron rods used to heat pots of tar, and were called loggerheads. Flip-dog and hottle are other names you may come across.

In a little inn, in a small village in one of the western counties of England, a group of men were assembled [in] the tap-room, where the fire was blazing very comfortably, and serving the purpose of keeping the poker at that degree of red heat necessary to warm a pot of beer when inserted therein.
James Hannay, King Dobbs, 1849

So was there a better way? In the UK two styles of ale muller or beer warmer developed, probably during the 18th century. Both could be used at the fireside. One was boot-shaped. You could stick the 'toe' into the fire and let the heat spread through the ale inside. (Called boots or slippers, sometimes shoes.) The other style was a simple cone to be stuck point-down into the heat from the top of the fire. Perhaps these would work best on a coal fire, although you could press them into a deep pile of glowing ash from a log fire. They were particularly widespread in 19th century Britain, where coal fires were the norm.

You could buy simple tin mullers as well as lovely shiny copper ones. Sambrook's Country House Brewing in England shows an 1898 catalogue offering two-pint tin cones at 24 shillings a dozen, while the same money would not pay for five copper cone mullers - available in one and one-and-a-half pint sizes too. Her book also shows a boot-shaped muller made of sheet iron.

'Then,' said Mr. Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale..'
..the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it over to Mr. Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant upon mulled malt.
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841

Over time the attractive copper ale mullers became something people enjoyed seeing around a fireplace. Along with well-polished warming pans, aka bed warmers, copper kettles, toasting forks etc. a copper ale muller developed an aura of comfortable tradition, evoking a cosy past when the hearth was warm.

This vessel was of copper — an ale-warmer, though the common name for the article was 'the devil'. This 'devil' now only hangs on the walls of inns as a relic of bygone times, because, I am told, not only are hot ales less asked for, but landlords and landladies are averse to the trouble of making such drinks.
Letter from Nottinghamshire, Notes and Queries, 1906

Bierwärmer - German beer warmer - a clean alternative to the poker?

In Germany and Austria some people warm their beer with a Bierwärmer, although they may be seen as old-fashioned. It's a tube that you fill with boiling water before putting it in your mug. It has a hook to hang it over the side, often with a stand to hold it when it's not in the beer. Old ones are tin (see picture); fancier ones were made of opalescent glass, or even silver. Some people used to use a metal rod that was heated in boiling water. There are some vintage mid-20th century electric immersion beer warmers too. Inns used to keep beer warmers for customers' drinks, but this has died out as it contravenes modern hygiene regulations.

[In 1930s Vienna the musician Guido Adler] ..had the waiter bring him a 'beer-warmer' (an iron rod removed from a pot of boiling water and stuck into the beer glass).
Edward R. Reilly, Gustav Mahler and Guido Adler: Records of a Friendship

More than one stainless steel beer warmer of the German 'hot water bottle' type is currently available. Some are promoted as protecting stomachs which can't tolerate cold beer. Are these being bought by people who remember beer warming in 'the old days', or by a new generation of cask ale connoisseurs? Brewers sometimes suggest an ideal temperature for bringing out the flavour of their beer. Is this a good way of bringing beer to a state of perfection?

*Photos of kitchen and copper mullers taken for Heather's Travel Blog
**See Congreve's Love for Love, 1695, for a flip-drinking sailor

07 Feb 2011

Back to top of page

A flip is a class of mixed drinks. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was first used in 1695 to describe a mixture of beer, rum, and sugar, heated with a red-hot iron ('Thus we live at sea; eat biscuit, and drink flip'). The iron caused the drink to froth, and this frothing (or 'flipping') engendered the name. Over time, eggs were added and the proportion of sugar increased, the beer was eliminated, and the drink ceased to be served hot.^{[citation needed]}

The first bar guide to feature a flip was Jerry Thomas's 1862 How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion. In this work, Thomas declares that, 'The essential in flips of all sorts is to produce the smoothness by repeated pouring back and forward between two vessels and beating up the eggs well in the first instance the sweetening and spices according to taste.'^[1]

With time, the distinction between egg nog (a spirit, egg, cream, sugar, and spice) and a flip (a spirit, egg, sugar, spice, but no cream) was gradually codified in U.S. bar guides. In recent decades, bar guides have begun to indicate the presence of cream in a flip as optional.

Flip, in those days, was a favourite and fashionable liquor, especially among the New England settlers..Put into a quart of beer a tablespoonful of brown sugar, warm it thoroughly by stirring it round with a red hot poker; add from a gill to half a pint of old Antigua rum; grate on half a nutmeg; our grandfathers thought it a capital beverage.
Charles Miner, History of Wyoming, 1845

Mary Gaston, Antique Brass & Copper from Amazon.com or from Amazon UK

Gregg Smith, Beer in America: The Early Years--1587-1840, from Amazon

The English labourer, according to my experience, prefers to warm his supper ale with a red-hot poker.
Walter Johnson, Folk Memory, 1908

.those good old days when it was thought best to heat the poker red hot before plunging it into the mugs of flip. This heating of the poker has been disapproved of late years, but I do not know on what grounds; if one is to drink bitters and gins and the like..I do not know why one should not make them palatable and heat them with his own poker.
Charles Dudley Warner, Backlog Studies, 1872

Warming beer and mulling ale at the fireside - tin and copper mullers, hot pokers or flip-irons

In this photo* of a 1790s English kitchen are two different brass containers for warming beer. If you want to try spotting them yourself before reading on, look on the wall to the right of the fireplace and on the mantelshelf. Attractive copper antiques now - but once they were used for warming and mulling ale. Why was beer warmed? And how?

In England and other beer-drinking countries warm ale was a popular winter drink when heated on its own or mulled with spice and sugar. Many people also thought ale was healthier drunk warm. And then there was a fondness for sweetened warm ale with nutmeg. If you added a measure of rum or brandy the mixture was called flip, and was popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

..when I did always drink cold beer..I was very often troubled with exceeding pain in the head..also with stomach-ache, tooth-ache, cough, cold, and many other rheumatic diseases. But since my drinking my beer (small or strong) actually as hot as blood, I have never been troubled with any of the former diseases, but have always continued in very good health constantly..
F.W., A Treatise of Warm Beer, 1641

In England, although mulled ale was popular, and there were recipes for flip in cookery books, it was sometimes seen as slightly disreputable, associated with boisterous sailors from the 17th century on.** 19th century writers also thought it suitable for the lower classes at Christmas. There doesn't seem to have been this feeling amongst settlers in America. Flip is mentioned in the memoirs of respectable New Englanders.

Flip, a sort of Sailor's Drink, made of Ale, Brandy, and Sugar.
Nathan Bailey, An universal etymological English dictionary, 1721

Connecticut, 1820s: The boys heated the flip-irons and passed around the cider and flip, while Aunt Esther and the daughters were as busy in serving the doughnuts, cake, and cheese.
Wm C Beecher and Rev. Samuel Scoville, A Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 1888

Men drinking in an inn or at home by the hearth didn't necessarily want to wait for someone in the kitchen to warm up ale or flip in a pan. They used a hot poker from the fire. You can see this re-created, complete with hissing sound effects, in A Man for All Seasons when Cromwell sticks a poker into a tall pewter tankard of ale before giving it to a visitor. Slightly more hygienic, and avoiding any burnt taste, were the flip-irons set aside for warming drinks. They may have gone from jug to jug, tankard to tankard, but at least they didn't have ash on. Some had rounded heads, like the iron rods used to heat pots of tar, and were called loggerheads. Flip-dog and hottle are other names you may come across.

In a little inn, in a small village in one of the western counties of England, a group of men were assembled [in] the tap-room, where the fire was blazing very comfortably, and serving the purpose of keeping the poker at that degree of red heat necessary to warm a pot of beer when inserted therein.
James Hannay, King Dobbs, 1849

So was there a better way? In the UK two styles of ale muller or beer warmer developed, probably during the 18th century. Both could be used at the fireside. One was boot-shaped. You could stick the 'toe' into the fire and let the heat spread through the ale inside. (Called boots or slippers, sometimes shoes.) The other style was a simple cone to be stuck point-down into the heat from the top of the fire. Perhaps these would work best on a coal fire, although you could press them into a deep pile of glowing ash from a log fire. They were particularly widespread in 19th century Britain, where coal fires were the norm.

You could buy simple tin mullers as well as lovely shiny copper ones. Sambrook's Country House Brewing in England shows an 1898 catalogue offering two-pint tin cones at 24 shillings a dozen, while the same money would not pay for five copper cone mullers - available in one and one-and-a-half pint sizes too. Her book also shows a boot-shaped muller made of sheet iron.

'Then,' said Mr. Codlin, 'fetch me a pint of warm ale..'
..the landlord retired to draw the beer, and presently returning with it, applied himself to warm the same in a small tin vessel shaped funnel-wise, for the convenience of sticking it far down in the fire and getting at the bright places. This was soon done, and he handed it over to Mr. Codlin with that creamy froth upon the surface which is one of the happy circumstances attendant upon mulled malt.
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841

Over time the attractive copper ale mullers became something people enjoyed seeing around a fireplace. Along with well-polished warming pans, aka bed warmers, copper kettles, toasting forks etc. a copper ale muller developed an aura of comfortable tradition, evoking a cosy past when the hearth was warm.

This vessel was of copper — an ale-warmer, though the common name for the article was 'the devil'. This 'devil' now only hangs on the walls of inns as a relic of bygone times, because, I am told, not only are hot ales less asked for, but landlords and landladies are averse to the trouble of making such drinks.
Letter from Nottinghamshire, Notes and Queries, 1906

Bierwärmer - German beer warmer - a clean alternative to the poker?

In Germany and Austria some people warm their beer with a Bierwärmer, although they may be seen as old-fashioned. It's a tube that you fill with boiling water before putting it in your mug. It has a hook to hang it over the side, often with a stand to hold it when it's not in the beer. Old ones are tin (see picture); fancier ones were made of opalescent glass, or even silver. Some people used to use a metal rod that was heated in boiling water. There are some vintage mid-20th century electric immersion beer warmers too. Inns used to keep beer warmers for customers' drinks, but this has died out as it contravenes modern hygiene regulations.

[In 1930s Vienna the musician Guido Adler] ..had the waiter bring him a 'beer-warmer' (an iron rod removed from a pot of boiling water and stuck into the beer glass).
Edward R. Reilly, Gustav Mahler and Guido Adler: Records of a Friendship

More than one stainless steel beer warmer of the German 'hot water bottle' type is currently available. Some are promoted as protecting stomachs which can't tolerate cold beer. Are these being bought by people who remember beer warming in 'the old days', or by a new generation of cask ale connoisseurs? Brewers sometimes suggest an ideal temperature for bringing out the flavour of their beer. Is this a good way of bringing beer to a state of perfection?

*Photos of kitchen and copper mullers taken for Heather's Travel Blog
**See Congreve's Love for Love, 1695, for a flip-drinking sailor

07 Feb 2011

Back to top of page

A flip is a class of mixed drinks. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was first used in 1695 to describe a mixture of beer, rum, and sugar, heated with a red-hot iron ('Thus we live at sea; eat biscuit, and drink flip'). The iron caused the drink to froth, and this frothing (or 'flipping') engendered the name. Over time, eggs were added and the proportion of sugar increased, the beer was eliminated, and the drink ceased to be served hot.^{[citation needed]}

The first bar guide to feature a flip was Jerry Thomas's 1862 How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon-Vivant's Companion. In this work, Thomas declares that, 'The essential in flips of all sorts is to produce the smoothness by repeated pouring back and forward between two vessels and beating up the eggs well in the first instance the sweetening and spices according to taste.'^[1]

With time, the distinction between egg nog (a spirit, egg, cream, sugar, and spice) and a flip (a spirit, egg, sugar, spice, but no cream) was gradually codified in U.S. bar guides. In recent decades, bar guides have begun to indicate the presence of cream in a flip as optional.

History[edit]

The hot beverage known as flip, from which the modern cocktail evolved, has been around since the late 1600s originating first from colonial America. It was a very popular drink in English and American taverns until the 19th century.^[2][3] There were many variations as each tavern would have its own recipe. It was principally a mulled ale, with the addition of rum or brandy, sugar, spices (almost always grated nutmeg), and fresh eggs.^[3][4] Some notable variations existed such as the Sailor's Flip which had no ale, or the Egg-Hot which had no spirits.^[2]

Red Hot Poker Cocktails

The drink was warmed (and thus mulled) by first having its beer component placed in a vessel by a fire. Once near boiling, the hot ale was transferred to a jug and combined with the other ingredients. Another jug was used to pour the liquid back and forth (hence the name flip) until creamy smooth.^[2][4] Finally, the drink was served in a cup or tankard and finished using a dedicated iron fireplace poker called a flipdog, hottle, or toddy rod. Goa casino cruise rates 2020. The rod would be heated in or by the fire until red-hot and then plunged into the cup of flip. The hot iron further mulled and frothed the drink, imparting a slightly bitter, burned taste.^[3]

A loggerhead was originally used as the hot-rod before the purpose-built flipdog or toddy rod evolved from it. It was a narrow piece of iron about three feet long with a slightly bulbous head about the size of a small onion, used for heating tar or pitch to make it pliable.^[3]

Flip is mentioned in Charles Dickens' 1864 book Our Mutual Friend when describing the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters tavern.^[2]

A recipe of the old drink, as written in The Cook's Oracle (1822):^[4]

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, &c. into another;— turn it from one pitcher to another till it is as smooth as Cream.

Flip recipes from Jerry Thomas (1887)[edit]

The following flip recipes appear in Jerry Thomas 1887.

• Cold Brandy Flip – brandy, water, egg, sugar, grated nutmeg
• Cold Rum Flip – substitute Jamaica rum
• Cold Gin Flip – substitute Holland gin
• Cold Whiskey Flip – substitute Bourbon or rye whiskey
• Port Wine Flip – substitute port wine
• Sherry Wine Flip – substitute sherry
• Hot Brandy Flip – brandy, sugar, egg yolk, hot water, grated nutmeg
• Hot Rum Flip – substitute Jamaica rum
• Hot Whiskey Flip – substitute whiskey
• Hot Gin Flip – substitute Holland gin
• Hot English Rum Flip – ale, aged rum, raw eggs, sugar, grated nutmeg or ginger
• Hot English Ale Flip – same as Rum Flip, without rum and less egg white
• Sleeper – aged rum, sugar, egg, water, cloves, coriander, lemon

Red Hot Poker Cocktail Recipes

References[edit]

1. ^Jerry Thomas, How to Mix Drinks (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1862), 60.
2. ^ ^abcdBickerdyke, John (1889). The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History: Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts. London: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co. pp. 388, 389.
3. ^ ^abcdCurtis, Wayne (2007). And a bottle of rum: A history of the new world in ten cocktails. Broadway Books. p. 74. ISBN0307338622.
4. ^ ^abcKitchiner, William (1822). The Cook's Oracle; containing receipts for plain cookery on the most economical plan for private families; also the art of composing the most simple, and most highly finished broths, gravies, soups, sauces, store sauces, and flavouring essences: The Quality of each Article is accurately stated by weight and measure; The whole being the result of actual experiments instituted in the kitchen of a physician. London. pp. 384, 385.