A clear jug and tumbler of fizzing ruby-pink soda negus with thin pink froth rings stand beside an empty tumbler and a corked aqua bottle on a gray zinc counter against a bottle-green wall. — Soda negus in a glass jug and a tumbler, with a corked bottle of soda water and an empty glass.

Soda Negus, Warm Port with Soda Water

Name: Soda Negus
Prep time: 2 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 7 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 250 ml ruby port; 4 sugar cubes; 3 whole cloves; 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg; 300 ml chilled soda water

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Ruby port warmed with sugar, cloves and nutmeg, then topped in the jug with a bottle of soda water so it reaches the glass fizzing: Jerry Thomas’s soda negus of 1862.

By Forgotten DrinkPublished October 21, 2026

Recipe makes: About 560 ml, 4 small glasses
Prep: 2 min
Cook: 5 min
Total: 7 min

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Soda negus in a glass jug and a tumbler, with a corked bottle of soda water and an empty glass.

The story behind the recipe

Soda negus is ruby port warmed with sugar, cloves and nutmeg, then topped up in the jug with a bottle of soda water, so it reaches the glass fizzing and only just warm. Jerry Thomas printed it in New York in 1862, in How to Mix Drinks, as “a most refreshing and elegant beverage, particularly for those who do not take punch or grog after supper.”

Nutmeg to cover a shilling

The measures are a giveaway. Thomas asks for “enough grated nutmeg to cover a shilling,” a British coin, in a book printed in New York, which suggests he took the recipe from an English book. He did the same on the facing page, where his “Port Wine Negus” is Mrs. Beeton’s 1861 recipe, copied almost word for word. That one is the usual jug of port and boiling water; this one replaces the boiling water with soda, and the whole drink becomes something to drink at once, before the bubbles go.

His other instructions are short and practical. The wine goes into a saucepan with “four lumps of sugar, three cloves” and the nutmeg, and he warns: “warm it well, but do not suffer it to boil.” Then it goes into a bowl or jug, and the soda water is poured onto the warm wine.

Warm, not hot

Soda water poured onto warm port cools it fast, and that is the point: the drink ends up lukewarm and lively. Use the soda straight from the fridge, which keeps more of the fizz, and pour it in gently down the side of the jug.

Half a pint in an 1862 New York book probably means the American half pint of about 237 ml, though an English source would have meant the Imperial 284 ml; 250 ml sits between the two. With a port at about 20% ABV and a 300 ml bottle of soda, the jug comes out near 9% ABV, somewhere between 8 and 10% depending on the bottle and the soda. That is stronger than most negus, because there is less water in it.

Negus was out of fashion by the 1890s, as Negus, the Warm Wine of Georgian Balls tells; in 1920 a temperance hostess topped grape juice with soda water the same way for a Grape Juice Highball.

A most refreshing and elegant beverage, particularly for those who do not take punch or grog after supper, is thus made:
Put half a pint of port wine, with four lumps of sugar, three cloves, and enough grated nutmeg to cover a shilling, into a saucepan; warm it well, but do not suffer it to boil; pour it into a bowl or jug, and upon the warm wine decant a bottle of soda-water. You will have an effervescing and delicious negus by this means.

Jerry ThomasHow to Mix Drinks (1862), p. 63

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Ingredients

For About 560 ml, 4 small glasses. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for About 560 ml, 4 small glasses.

Ruby port250 ml
Sugar cubes4
Cloves3
Freshly grated nutmeg1/8 metric tsp (5 ml per tsp)
Chilled soda water300 ml

Ingredients as written here

250 ml ruby port
4 sugar cubes
3 whole cloves
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
300 ml chilled soda water

Equipment

Small saucepan
Heatproof bowl or jug, warmed, to serve
Glass or tumbler

Instructions

Put the ruby port, sugar cubes, whole cloves and nutmeg into a small saucepan. Warm over low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved and the port is steaming. Do not let it boil.
Pour the warm port into a warmed heatproof jug and lift out the cloves if you like.
Pour the chilled soda water gently down the side of the jug onto the warm wine and give it one slow stir.
Serve at once in small glasses or tumblers, while it is still fizzing.

Nutrition

120calories per serving

Recipe makes: About 560 ml, 4 small glasses
Servings: 4

Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for sweet dessert wine and granulated sugar, ignoring any alcohol lost to heat; soda water adds nothing.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Half a pint of port to one bottle of soda water is the 1862 batch; keep the port and soda in about that proportion.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.

Keep the pan of port away from open flames: warm wine gives off alcohol vapor that can catch light. Nutmeg is used here in a kitchen amount; the nutmeg poisonings reviewed by the Illinois Poison Center (Ehrenpreis and colleagues, Journal of Medical Toxicology, 2014) involved amounts many times larger than any recipe calls for.

Thomas gives no size for “a bottle of soda-water”; 300 ml is our choice. His “four lumps of sugar” were cut by hand from a sugar loaf and varied in size, so four modern cubes, about 16 g, are a minimum; add more to taste. “Enough grated nutmeg to cover a shilling” is a light dusting, about 1/8 tsp.

For a version with no alcohol, make it with the juices from our alcohol-free negus: warm 250 ml of mixed red grape and blackcurrant juice with 3 sugar cubes, 3 cloves and a pinch of nutmeg, and top with 300 ml chilled soda water.

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.