Here we come a-caroling among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wandering so fair to be seen
Love and Joy come to you, and a Merry Christmas too
And God Bless You and send you a Happy New Year
God send you a Happy New Year.
Everyone is familiar with the Caroling Song. I had to learn it in music class when I was in elementary school, along with some additional verses, nearly forty years ago, and I still remember the song to this very day. The second verse goes;
We are not your daily beggars who go from door to door,
We are your neighbors children whom you have seen before.
And the third verse;
Good Master and Good Mistress while you’re sitting by the fire
Pray think of us poor children who are wandering in the mire.
But did you know that the song was originally an English song about children begging for an alcoholic beverage as they went from door to door singing Christmas carols? Yeah, of course our teachers left out the verses about drinking. And the verses we did learn had been changed dramatically from the original.
Christmas and alcohol have been together since the earliest days of the holiday, even before Christmas was Christmas, that is a celebration of the birth of Christ. It has origins in pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice, and we all know what the pagans liked to do; drink. So this week we are going to take a look at the relationship between alcohol and winter celebrations, including some of the more famous drinks associated with the holiday.
The first time I ever had a drink with the family, not counting the times my Uncle Bill would let me have a sip of his beer, was at Christmas. A little sip of wine on Christmas Eve, maybe two, or three… Now I know why they’d let us do it now, so we’d go to sleep and wouldn’t stay up all night waiting for Santa Claus, at least we’d sleep for a little while, long enough for Santa to get the presents from the hiding spots and under the tree. We always had alcohol at Christmas, especially on my mom’s side of the family. And I don’t know for sure how many generations back the tradition of drinking at Christmas started, but I would bet it was probably ancient, before there was even Christmas, you know, given our Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo Saxon, and Teutonic lineage, and all of those people drank in celebration of the Winter Solstice.
The Solstice was important to ancient man because it ushered in the coming of Spring. While the hours of daylight have been growing shorter and shorter since mid-Summer, beginning on or around December 21st, the days begin to grow longer again. It was a time to rejoice. While we call it the first day of Winter, ancient man saw it as the first day toward Spring, a promise of the return of warmer days, a promise of new life, a promise of rebirth, if you will, and a cause for bounteous celebration.
Newgrange: Neolithic Portal Tomb, Co. Meath, Ireland, built circa 3,000BCE. To illustrate the importance of the Winter Solstice to prehistoric and primitive man, this tomb was built so that at sunrise on the Winter solstice a beam of sunlight would come through a portal, engulfing the burial chamber in light. The particulars of the religion behind this are unknown.
The pre Christian Romans celebrated Saturnalia, to honor their god Saturn. The holiday lasted a week, beginning around December 17th, with businesses and government proceedings being suspended, and was marked by feasting and drinking, exchanging of small gifts, and fertility rites. Boughs of greenery were brought in to deck the halls. The special drink of the Romans at Saturnalia was Mulsum, a honeyed wine. Not to be confused with mead, which is fermented honey water, Mulsum is made by adding warm honey to a medium dry wine, mixing the two ingredients well, then allowed to cool before being drank.
The pre-Christian Romans celebrated Saturnalia with a week of feasting, drinking, and gift giving beginning on December 17th
The Scandinavians and Germanic peoples celebrated the Feast of Juul (Yule), which is the Old Norse word for “wheel.” These people believed that the sun was on a wheel-or was a wheel- circling the earth. Feasting, dancing, drinking were all a part of the celebration, as was the bringing of evergreen boughs into the great hall. A large log, the Yule log, would be brought into the great hall where it burned for 12 days. The ashes would be collected after the celebration and then spread over agricultural fields with prayers to the gods. One of those deities was Aegir, the brewer of the gods. In Norse and Teutonic mythology, Aegir held a great drinking party every year at the winter solstice for the Norse gods, and the Feast of Yule was an homage to Aegir’s hospitality. Drinks preferred at these celebrations included mead, but more popular with the holiday were strong sweet ales made from malt. The Anglo Saxons brought these traditions when they invaded England in the Mid 1st Millennia CE, and the traditions were reinforced by the Norsemen, who also brought them with, when they invaded England towards the end of the same Millennia.
The Winter Solstice was not one of the major holidays for the pre Christian Celts of Britain, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany. The holidays of Samhain and Imbolc celebrated on the halfway points between the equinoxes and solstices- Samhain in the Autumn, and Imbolc in the Spring- were the big Celtic holidays. The recent New Age Druid and Celtic movement celebrates Alban Arthan, or The Light of Arthur, in reference to King Arthur, on the Winter Solstice but this seems to be a recently made up holiday, as there is no historical mention or oral tradition of its celebration before the pre Christian era. However, Romans and early Christian missionaries who were contact with the pagan Celts often noted that the Celts would burn great bonfires on the Winter Solstice. These bonfires would be accompanied by feasting and drinking of ales made from malted barley, and/or wheat, and flavored with either honey or bog myrtle. Sometimes hot milk was added to the ales, to make a drink known as Posset.
The ancient Celts burned bonfires on the Winter Solstice to light the longest night of the year.
The pre Roman Christians didn’t celebrate the birth of Christ. Their big feast was Easter, the resurrection. And the gospels say nothing about the date of Jesus’s birth, other than a reference in the Book of Luke to the shepherds being in the fields with their flocks, which would indicate it was probably at the time when the lambs were being born, which would mean early spring, late February or early March.
When Roman Emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan, ensuring religious tolerance for Christians in 313, it was not long after that he converted to Christianity. There is a whole bunch of reasons for his doing this, mostly because of the concept of one god and one emperor, but I won’t go into all the details here. But needless to say, after he converts what is he going to do about this pagan holiday celebrating the Roman God Saturn? Viola! In the year 336 Constantine decreed that December 25 was Jesus’s Birthday, and from then on Saturnalia became Christ’s Mass, or Christmas.
This was a brilliant move by Constantine, whether he knew it or not, he gave the Christian missionaries a gift, as it made the conversion of the other pagan groups easier by allowing them to incorporate the activities of their Winter Solstice festivals into the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. So, that’s why we bring evergreen trees into our houses, we burn the Yule log, both traditions from the Teutonic and Scandinavian cultures. We give gifts, a tradition brought to England by the Romans; it was not as an homage to the gifts brought to the Christ child by the wise man, as many were taught as children.
There was war on Christmas back in the 1600’s, but it’s not what you think. During the 16th and 17th Centuries in England, Christmas was one of the most important festivals of the year, and it was celebrated for 12 days (hence the song). Churches and buildings were decorated with evergreens and holly, there was gift giving and dancing and feasting and drinking of Christmas ales, and… a lot of debauchery that comes along with great celebrations, including gambling, promiscuity, and other forms of sin. A segment of the followers of the Church of England known as the Puritans believed that reforms were needed. One of them wrote,
“That more mischief is that time committed than in all the year besides, what masking and mumming, whereby robbery whoredom, murder, and what not is committed? What dicing and carding, what eating and drinking, what banqueting and feasting is then used, more than in all the year besides, to the great dishonor of God and impoverishing of the realm.”
During the 1640’s, these Puritans, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, came to power in Parliament, overthrowing King Charles I, eventually beheading him, abandoning the monarchy, and establishing the Commonwealth of England. The Puritans then argued that Christmas was nothing more than a pagan celebration attached to Christ’s birth by the Romans, a vestige of Roman Catholicism, and in the 1650’s they made it a crime to celebrate Christmas at all, regardless of whether it was secular or religious!
Notice from 17th Century New England forbidding the observance of Christmas.
Cromwell died, Parliament couldn’t figure out how to find a successor that the people would follow, so in 1660 they invited the son of Charles I, Charles II, back to England, restored the monarchy, and the English were able to celebrate Christmas once more, unless they didn’t want to, and some didn’t, but most of the people were very happy that Christmas was back. And this particular historical incident was well known to the founders of the United States, and was part of the justification for the rights of religious liberty and freedom of worship, so all faiths would be able to celebrate Christmas as they chose.
With the Restoration of the Monarchy in England 1660 Christmas was once again observed. A depiction of bringing in the Yule Log, late 17th Century
Today, many of the traditions from Europe are a part of the typical American Christmas; the Christmas tree, evergreen wreaths, and boughs of holly… With the feasting and drinking many foods and drinks associated with Christmas came along with the Europeans who came to North America. Winter ales have become quite popular with craft brew aficionados, and these are really just variants of the strong Christmas ales from the English, German, and Scandinavian traditions. But, there are some drinks that we specifically associate with Christmas, and let’s look at four of them: Hot Toddy, Mulled Wine, Wassail, and Eggnog.
There are other drinks that are associated with Christmas, or Winter, including Hot Chocolate, Hot Cider, and the uniquely American drink, Tom & Jerry (which I will talk about in a future blog about American cocktails), but historically, from the English and German traditions, these four drinks are most associated with Christmas.
Hot Toddy
ot Toddy is really nothing more than ANY distilled spirit that is mixed with boiling water, sugar and spices. The name probably comes from the British Colonial period, where in India a liquor known as tārī made from the fermented sap of the Toddy Palm tree was drank by British soldiers; ‘Toddy” simply meant ‘a drink.’
The drink that we know today has its roots in Scotland and Ireland. Made with Scotch or Irish Whiskey, boiling water from the kettle, sugar or honey, and addition of spices such as cloves, nutmeg, and/or cinnamon, and is still touted today as a cure for the common cold. But people also claimed the drink had preventative powers as well, so it was, and is, drank throughout the Winter in both countries. A bit of a legend arose in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 18th Century, where it is said that the water that was best for use in the toddy should come from Tod’s Well, but the story seems apocryphal rather than factual.
When the hot toddy was brought to British Colonial North America, the most common spirit at the time was rum, which is still the most popular liquor used for the drink in New England. A variation on the drink is Hot Buttered Rum, where a dollop of softened butter is added to the mix. Other variants often seen in America have the drink made with brandy or applejack (freeze distilled cider). The go to Hot Toddy at Paddy Malone’s is made with Irish whiskey, raw sugar, lemon and cloves.
Mulled Wine
Mulled wine is an old drink, going back to the ancient Greeks, who would add spices and aromatics to less-than-great wine. The Romans did the same thing, however as mentioned earlier, they also added honey, would bring the mixture to a simmer, and other additions included pepper, saffron, bay leaves, and dates.
But mulled wine really took off in the Middle Ages in Northern Europe, where the drink first earned its current name. The word ‘mull’ developed at this time, meaning to heat, sweeten, and spice. The reason mulling became popular was because there was a lot of bad wine that could be bought more cheaply than the better vintages, and so to mask a less than desirable flavor, additives were needed.
Victorian Era Christmas. Painting by Viggo Johansen
But it was during Victorian period in England that mulled wine became associated with Christmas, particularly after Charles Dickens wrote about the drink in his timeless story A Christmas Carol, where he wrote of a version of warm mulled wine called ‘Smoking Bishop,’ thereafter solidifying the drink’s attachment to the Christmas Holiday. It was during this time that orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, along with a touch of port or sweet brandy were added to dry red wine, which is very similar to the versions that are served today.
Wassail
Previously I mentioned the English Christmas caroling tradition of children going door to door and asking for a drink. Well, that drink was Wassail, and the act of caroling and begging for a Christmas drink was called Wassailing.
Wassail is basically a Christmas punch, and the name has an old lineage. The word was originally a greeting and comes from the Old Norse ‘ves heil’ and the Old English ‘was hál’, which meant ‘be in good health’ or ‘be fortunate.’ For the Danish and Anglo Saxons in Britain during the first Millennia CE it was the standard greeting. We know this because the word appears in the 8th Century CE epic poem Beowulf :
The rider sleepeth
The hero, far-hidden; no harp resounds,
In the courts no wassail, as once was heard.
Within 400 years the word had changed in the lexicon from just a standard greeting to a toast, as is illustrated in this poem written by an anonymous Anglo Saxon poet:
Rejoice and Wassail
Pass the bottle and drink healthy
Drink backwards and drink to me
Drink half and drink empty
The greeting was ubiquitous in England, so much so that when the Normans arrived in 1066 they regarded the salute as the uniquely English toast.
In the late Middle Ages the, around the 13th Century, the term came to also denote the drink as well as the toast. Initially Wassail was made from wine and imported spices and citrus, so only the wealthy could afford it, but the commoners began to make a similar punch from ales and ciders, adding what spices they could afford along with pieces of apple and pears, the locally grown fruits of the common folk.
It was along this same time that the use of the Wassail bowl came into play. Families would have craftsmen make these bowls for them, some very elaborate, made of pewter or fine hardwoods. The very wealthy would even have them made from precious metals or carved from decorative stone such as marble. These bowels would be passed from generation to generation. The vessels would be filled with Wassail, in which the guests would dip cakes and fine breads, and bits of crispy bread might be floated upon the surface, giving rise to the term ‘Toast” as a salutation when drinking. Very often people would drink from the bowl using the same cup. The leader would take the cup of Wassail, make a toast, drink, then refill it and give the next person a kiss, hand them the cup, they would make a toast and drink, and the ritual went on.
Around 1600, people began to take the Wassail bowl to the streets going door to door. Wassailers would go to the houses of the well-to-do, offering a warm cup of the punch in exchange for payment. One commentator wrote: “Wenches… by the wassels at New Year’s tide… present you with a cup, and you must drink the slabby stuff; but the meaning is you must give them moneys.”
Depiction of Wassailing in England, circa Mid 2nd Millennia CE
It wasn’t long before this practice morphed into caroling. At Christmastide it was expected that the wealthy would be generous with the poor, even opening their homes to groups of wassailers, and feasting them of fine food and drink would ensue. As payment, the gatherers would sing songs for the hosts. This practice also gave birth to the expression, ‘to sing for your supper.’
Under Puritan rule in the mid 1600’s, in both England and the New England colonies, in some locales, wassailing was forbidden and violators could be punished with public humiliation; i.e. the stocks or pillory. Besides the religious implications there were other reasons for this. Sometimes the revelers would get a bit out of hand, refuse to leave homes unless they were given more drink, or other gifts, including money. There are many recorded instances, especially in the American colonies, of wassailers gone wild around the holidays in the 17th and 18th Centuries.
During the 19th Century Victorian era, many authors, from Washington Irving to Charles Dickens, wrote stories that planted an idealized form of the traditional English Christmas in the minds of the readers, complete with wassailing in a civilized manner. This was the time of that the song, “Here we come a Wassaling” gained popularity, with caroling and wassail coming together in the mid 1800’s- and survives pretty much in the same form of celebration to this day, except for the drink.
Because of the emerging temperance movement in the late 1800’s, the wassail was usually, but not always, non-alcoholic punch, if given out to the carolers, at all. And with Prohibition in the 1920’s and its aftermath, the practice of giving drink to carolers was all but abandoned. It was at this time, that the song became “Here we come a-Caroling.” The verses to the original, “Here We Come a-Wassailing” are as follows:
Here we come a-wassailing, Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand'ring, So fair to be seen.
REFRAIN:
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year.
Our wassail cup is made Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer Of the best barley.
REFRAIN:
We are not daily beggars That beg from door to door;
But we are neighbours' children, Whom you have seen before.
REFRAIN:
Call up the butler of this house, Put on his golden ring.
Let him bring us up a glass of beer, And better we shall sing.
REFRAIN:
We have got a little purse Of stretching leather skin;
We want a little of your money To line it well within.
REFRAIN:
Bring us out a table And spread it with a cloth;
Bring us out a mouldy cheese, And some of your Christmas loaf.
REFRAIN:
God bless the master of this house Likewise the mistress too,
And all the little children That round the table go.
REFRAIN:
Good master and good mistress, While you're sitting by the fire,
Pray think of us poor children Who are wandering in the mire.
Love and Joy come to you,
and to you your wassail, too
And may God Bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year.
Today in America wassail is a throwback, and is generally served as a novelty at parties around Christmas. I’ve been to more than one Holiday party in my life where hostess had to explain to the guests the significance of wassail. And I’ve also been to parties where they didn’t put any alcohol in the wassail. Good thing I usually carry a flask.
Eggnog
Of all the drinks associated with the winter holidays in America, perhaps the most recognized is Eggnog. And I am not talking about that fecking pasteurized non alcoholic shit in the dairy section of the grocery store. See that stuff is like half and half and high fructose corn syrup and as little as 1% egg yolk flavoring and coloring added to it and some nutmeg. It sucks, and if you’ve ever had real eggnog, you know how much it sucks.
Now at the pub, every Christmas eve, we serve freshly made Eggnog, and it has become very popular. And when people have it they say, “Wow! I can’t believe how delicious this is?” And it is- fresh cream, fresh eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and whiskey. Mmmmm…
But where did this tradition of drinking eggnog at Christmas come from? Well eggnog is the child of an earlier drink, Posset, which was a drink made from fresh milk which was boiled, then ale or wine and spices were added to it, which would cause the milk to curdle, so you probably kind of sucked it down like a custard, maybe. It was a celebratory drink of the Celtic stock of the British Isles, especially the Highland Scots and the Irish. By the 13th Century, eggs and figs were being added to the recipe, and it wasn’t long before the recipe morphed into Eggnog.
The word Nog, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is an old English word first appearing in the written language in the 17th Century, meaning strong ale or beer, and of course egg is self explanatory, so Eggnog originally meant, ‘Egg Beer.’ Some places on the internet will say that the suffix ‘nog’ is a contraction of the word ‘noggin’ which is a wooden drinking vessel. But, since Eggnog was also drunk from containers not made of wood, this definition would seem to be apocryphal at best.
The Pub’s copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and the entry of the definition and origin of the word “Nog.”
By the 18th Century the poorer people were still making their eggnog with beer, but the wealthier segments of English society made theirs with expensive wines and liquors, like sherry, port, and brandy. It seems that when the drink crossed the Atlantic to the colonies is when it came into the version we are most familiar with today; lots of farms around, so plenty of eggs and milk and cream, but, the heavily taxed liquors of sherry, port, and brandy were soon replaced with rum from the Caribbean, which was cheap and abundant during the colonial period. Once England and American split, the liquor of choice for eggnog became whiskey. George Washington even had an eggnog recipe.
And why is this drink connected with the holidays here in America? Well, I can’t find any historical references to why. I can’t find a hard connection between Eggnog and Christmas. And I’ve been looking. My guess is it’s because of climate; the holidays are during the cooler period of the year, and in the days before refrigeration, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be making a drink out fresh eggs and milk when the weather was warm, so eggnog was made during the winter, and became associated with the winter holidays. And of course the dairy industry filling the dairy section at the supermarket every winter with that crap they call eggnog and putting it in festive cartons and pushing it off as a tradition may have had something to do with it. But, crass commercialism has never had anything do with Christmas, has it?
Why do I drink Eggnog at Christmas? Because I started drinking it years ago, and I love it. It’s delicious. For me, it wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without it. Here’s my recipe. Cheers!
Paddy Malone’s Eggnog*
INGREDIENTS:
· 12 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
· 1 quart of very cold heavy whipping cream
· 12 tablespoons of Sugar in the Raw or light brown sugar
· 1 ½ or2 cups of Jameson or Powers Irish Whiskey (I like 2 cups)
· Ground Nutmeg
In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. In another large bowl beat the cream until it is quite thick and frothy, then fold the cream in with the egg whites and store in the refrigerator. Using two large bowls with one fitting inside the other, put ice in the bottom bowl and place the other bowl on top. Pour the egg yolks in the top bowl and beat. While beating gradually add the sugar a tablespoon at a time until the yolks and sugar are very well mixed. Add the whiskey and continue beating. Gently fold the cream & whites mix into the yolks & whiskey mix and keep chilled. When ready to serve sprinkle nutmeg on the top.
*Eating raw eggs can pose a health risk to some. Just a warning. I’ve been drinking this for many years and have never been sick from it. I also eat raw oysters and sushi, so I don’t worry about eating raw food. I think the alcohol kills any bacteria in the eggs. I guess because I drink alcohol when I eat oysters, and sake when I eat sushi, that also kills the bacteria, but what do I know? I’m a half ass historian, not a doctor.
Sources:
Avey, Tory. “Eating and Drinking with Charles Dickens.” The History Kitchen. Dec. 20, 2012
http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/eating-and-drinking-with-charles-dickens/
Banecker, Greg. “10 Holiday Drinks with History Chasers.” The Matador Network. Dec. 24, 2015.
http://matadornetwork.com/nights/10-holiday-drinks-with-history-chasers/?single=1
Dias, Elizabeth. “A Brief History of Eggnog.” Time. Dec. 21, 2011
http://time.com/3957265/history-of-eggnog/
Doares, Robert. “Wassailing through History.” Colonial Williamsburg Quarterly Magazine Online. Holiday Issue, 2006.
http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Holiday06/wassail.cfm
Durston, Chris. “The Puritan War on Christmas.” History Today: The Archive. Dec. 12, 1985
http://www.historytoday.com/chris-durston/puritan-war-christmas
Guerber, H.A. Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas. London, Harrap & Company, 1908.
Malloy, Chris. “Why Do We Drink Eggnog at Christmas?” The Kitchn (sic). Dec. 12, 2016
http://www.thekitchn.com/why-we-drink-eggnog-at-christmas-226791
Pappas, Stephanie. “Pagan Roots? 5 Surprising Facts About Christmas.” LiveScience. Dec. 22, 2012.
http://www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html
Perabo, Lyonel. “Drinking Customs of the Vikings.” Bivrost. Date Unknown
http://www.bivrost.com/drinking-customs-of-the-vikings/
Rood, Joshua, MA. “Drinking with Ódinn: Alcohol and Religion in Heathen Scandinavia.” Unpublished Academic Paper. University of Iceland; Folkloristics/Ethnology and Museum Studies. Háskóli Íslands. April 14, 2014.
“The Lost Gospel of Judas.” National Geographic Online. May 2009.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/timeline_10.html