Clam Punch, Hot Clam and Tomato with Sherry from 1919
Reader ratingsClam juice and tomato catsup in a mug of boiling water, seasoned with salt, pepper and celery salt and finished with a dash of sherry: the 1919 clam punch, a hot savory cousin of the Bloody Mary.
- Recipe makes
- 1 mug
- Prep
- Total
Clam punch in a white china mug, with soda crackers, a celery-salt shaker and a small glass of sherry.
The story behind the recipe
Clam punch is hot clam broth with tomato catsup and a dash of sherry, served in a mug at the counter. Albert Hopkins gives it in Home Made Beverages, published in New York in 1919: an ounce of clam bouillon and half an ounce of catsup, the cup filled with boiling water and seasoned “with salt, pepper and celery salt.” Then comes one more line: “A dash of sherry wine in clam bouillon makes a very fine clam punch.”
Savory, hot and from the fountain
Hopkins’s clam drinks sit in his chapter of hot beverages, he compares them with beef tea, and he serves them as a fountain would, in an eight-ounce mug with “celery salt, salt and pepper cellars and soda crackers” for the customer. “Clam juice, like beef tea,” he says, “must always be served hot.” How those winter mugs came out of the same urn as the hot chocolate is in What Did Soda Fountains Sell in Winter?.
Tomato, clam, celery salt and pepper are the flavors of the Bloody Mary’s seasoned cousins, half a century before the Bloody Caesar, but this is a hot mug with a dash of wine, not a cold glass of spirit. The spirit went into cold tomato juice ten years later, in Gin and Tomato Juice, the 1929 Hangover Cocktail.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
Hopkins’s other clam recipes call for “extract clam bouillon,” a concentrate. Bottled clam juice is milder, so we use two ounces in place of his one; taste it and add more if the mug seems thin. The same mug without the sherry, as he prints it first, is Hot Clam and Tomato Broth from 1919. Its place among the savory glasses poured before anyone had heard of a Bloody Mary is in The Bloody Mary Before It Had a Name.
2.—Blend. Use 1 oz. clam bouillon, ½ oz. tomato catsup or bouillon; fill cup with boiling water; season with salt, pepper and celery salt. A dash of sherry wine in clam bouillon makes a very fine clam punch.
Recipe makes: 1 mug
Ingredients
For 1 mug. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 mug.
- Bottled clam juice2 fl oz
- Tomato ketchup1 tbsp
- Boiling water5 fl oz
- Salt1 pinch
- Black pepper1 pinch
- Celery salt1 pinch
- Dry sherry1/2 fl oz
- Soda crackers, to serve (optional)
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 2 fl oz bottled clam juice
- 1 tbsp tomato ketchup
- 5 fl oz boiling water
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 1 pinch celery salt
- 1/2 fl oz dry sherry
- Soda crackers, to serve (optional)
Equipment
Kettle
Mug, about 8 fl oz
Instructions
Put the bottled clam juice and tomato ketchup in the mug.
Fill it with the boiling water and stir until the ketchup dissolves.
Season with the salt, black pepper and celery salt, then stir in the dry sherry.
Serve at once, with soda crackers on the side if you like.
Nutrition
45calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 mug
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for bottled clam juice, tomato ketchup and dry sherry.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
One mug. Scale by whole mugs.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: twice Hopkins’s measure of clam, as bottled clam juice rather than his clam bouillon (his own No. 5 on the same page uses 2 oz of clam juice to 6 oz of water); the 5 fl oz of water for his “fill cup” and a pinch of each seasoning are ours, and so is half an ounce of dry sherry for his “dash.” Hopkins gives the sherry as a variation after the recipe; putting it in the mug is ours. His half ounce of catsup is about a tablespoon.
Strength: half an ounce of dry sherry at about 15% in about 8 fl oz of broth is roughly 1% alcohol. It is low in alcohol, not free of it.
Hopkins’s recipe without the sherry is our Hot Clam and Tomato Broth.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Albert A. Hopkins, Home Made Beverages (New York: Scientific American Publishing, 1919), “Hot Beverages: Clams”, No. 2, p. 119
Recipe details
- Drink
- DrinkLow-alcohol
- Drink family
- Hot Drinks
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1910s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Winter