“Christmas passed over much as the day usually does. There was a glorious destruction of egg-nog, apple toddy, whiskey punch… turkeys, geese, ducks… mince pies, apple pies, pumpkin pies… dough nut, short cake, long cake, pound cake, ginger cake… Pleasure was the order of the day… There were a few rows, which was quite natural; not more, however, than was required to fill up the scene to the life.” – The Baltimore Sun, December 1838
In 1863, one frequent advertiser in the Sun specifically linked their December merchandise with two holiday beverages. “EGG-NOG AND APPLE TODDY”, read an ad advertising fine brandies, wines, “and a small quantity of the ‘Nations Pride,’ Monongahela Rye Whisky.” The availability of figs, nuts, canned fruits and the like is tacked on to the advertisement as an afterthought.
During the holiday season, apple toddy was most often mentioned alongside eggnog, enjoyed at the festivities of the social clubs, a requisite part of Christmas reverie (and sometimes mayhem.)
As the temperance movement gained traction, traditions began to change.
Post-Prohibition Advertisement, 1935
In 1873 the Sun reported that temperance advocates were already having a chilling effect on the holiday consumption of alcohol: “Several timely meetings will be held in this city with a view to break up the fashion, which is declining, of providing egg nogg, apple toddy, and other intoxicating beverages at private houses, for all visitors during Christmas and New Year’s Day.”
In 1888 the Sun observed that there was “much less drinking during the Christmas holidays than in years gone by.” The streets were quiet at midnight. Christmas arrests were down to 140 across the city, when a decade before, there had been more than that many arrests in each district.
By 1897, when Governor Lloyd Lowndes Jr. served apple toddy at Christmastime, it was seen as a nostalgic tradition.
Gradually, the hand-wringing over the drinking of apple toddy was replaced by hand-wringing over the waning popularity of apple toddy. These laments appeared in the paper, along with plenty of stories about people serving and drinking apple toddy.
The Sun printed an apple toddy recipe in 1906, from “The Eastern ‘Sho” (as it was routinely called), along with reflections on the “time-honored traditions,” and a completely untrue claim that apple toddy had rarely been consumed to excess. Temperance had prevailed, the article claimed, whereas “these degenerate days good and pure old apple brandy is hard to procure.” This recipe garnered an angry letter, not for its wild assertions about moderation, but because the author had suggested boiling the apples rather than roasting them.
”Christopher’s Camp,” Maryland Historical Trust
A 1911 diatribe, written in the second-person by “L. C. A.,” told a rambling tale of a Christmas evening. In it, the author(“you”), enjoys Christmas songs, marvels at the prevalence of mail-order merchandise, and engages with some racist stereotypes. The narrative was long and weirdly written, but the message was clear: The good old days are over. The apple toddy -symbol of a traditional aristocratic Maryland Christmas- was dying out.
“If the recrudescence of apple toddy depends on you, then it will not recrudesce, you determine, and so when someone says, ‘Let’s make eggnog instead,’ you drop the half-dozen apples to which you have been holding desperately and join with the unimaginative, mediocre, conventional crowd that always does the obvious thing.” – “Christmas Echoes, With The Story of The Forgotten Recipe For An Insidious Drink”, Baltimore Sun, December 1911
It was reported that same year that apple toddy was “dispensed freely” at an open house at the Hotel Rennert.
Despite the old adage that “cobwebs on the demijohn” authenticate an apple toddy of the best quality, I didn’t plan that far ahead this year. Instead, I reached for a recipe that took mere hours. This recipe comes from the Maryland Historical Society’s ‘Hall Family Papers’, dated to around 1869. The Hall family resided around the Baltimore area and a manor in Bel Air known as Christopher’s Camp. The author of the cookbook was possibly Maria Wharton Williams Hall (1807-1871).
The combination of liquors used in apple toddy vary wildly between recipes. Some contain champagne or Curacao. Brandy is pretty standard. This recipe didn’t even contain rye whiskey. The drink should probably be strained before drinking but hey, this time of year, we could all use the extra nutriment. If you imbibe liberally, make sure to get into no more fights than are necessary to stage the scene of a proper Maryland Christmas.
Recipe:
- 6 apples, roasted
- .5 Pint French Brandy
- ½ cup peach brandy (pref. not ‘flavored’. I used apricot.)
- ½ cup Jamaica rum
- 1 Quart boiling water
- sugar to taste
- lemon rind, if desired
serve hot or cold
“To 6 apples well roasted, with the peel on (while hot pass through a colander) add a half pint of French brandy a gill of Jamaica spirits, a gill Peach brandy, and let it stand 4 hours covered closely, then add 1 qt of boiling water made very sweet with loaf sugar, if you add a few pieces lemon rind to the Brandy, take it out when you add the Water.”
From Hall Family Papers, Maryland Historical Society MS 3002
