The American Reviver

I recently dived into a book I’d been keen to read for some time. ‘An American in Victorian Cambridge’ by Charles Astor Bristed – note the name ‘Astor’- was a revelation. Covering the period 1840-1845 he shines a light on the rarefied lives of the wealthy young men who ‘came up to Cambridge’.

As the grandson of one of the richest men in the world Bristed arrived at Trinity College, not as an ordinary fellow, but a young man, who in paying twice as much as other students, secured a place amongst the exclusive ranks of ‘Fellow Commoners’. Such ‘Fellows’, shared the same privileges as College Fellows, although they were usually a great deal wealthier than them. It was these privileged men who got to reside in gracious and spacious College apartments.

Not unsurprisingly Bristed was rapturous about the beautiful College buildings ornamenting the landscape of the world he inhabited. He was spell bound by the erudite professors he daily dined with. Using every nugget of wisdom to realise his dream of gaining the highest academic honours possible.

Sadly, he didn’t make the grade. But the author, whose late father had been a presbyterian minister, had the advantage of viewing Cambridge through the lens of a sober outsider. That legacy offers a priceless insight into town and gown relations and for the purpose of this piece a chance to introduce a drink famed for being the ‘American Reviver.’

Whilst this young American celebrated the chance to brush gowned shoulders with many of the greatest thinkers of the time, his presbyterian upbringing of self-control was at odds with what he witnessed around him. Despite many of those men, training for some of the highest positions in the Church of England, he was taken aback by their flexible approach to Christian behaviour.

It had been at his second evensong, on the third day after his arrival in Cambridge, as he bent to pray in one of the special carved seats reserved for Fellows, he received a discrete invitation. Would he like to walk to ‘Barnwell’ later that evening? A new friend enquired.

Barnwell was a newly built suburb on the edge of the town. Erected to house the multitude of workers flocking to Cambridge in search of a livelihood. It was in the tight streets of Barnwell that young women could be found. Woman willing, or ripe for persuading, to satisfy the carnal desires of charming young drunken men. Bristed declined the invitation.

Drinking, drinking to excess, fills many pages of ‘An American in Victorian Cambridge’. But a standout moment is Charles Astor Bristed’s introduction of ‘Sherry Cobbler’ to Cambridge and the vengeful saga surrounding it.

Charles Dickens

The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit was published in twenty, monthly instalments, between January 1843 and July 1844, after which it came out as one bound volume. Dickens had visited America in 1842 in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade US publishers to honour international copyright laws. The lack of such an agreement enabled his books to be published in the United States without his permission, and, without royalties reaching his pocket. He wasn’t happy. In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens ridicules the country as a place filled with self-promoting hucksters. But there was one thing he did appreciate about American culture. The drinking of Sherry Cobbler. He gave it a big endorsement in the novel. Thus, by the summer of 1844 the reading public were curious about the drink, also referred to as the ‘American Reviver’, which was prescribed for Martin by his friend Mark Tapley and told in the scene below:

‘I am quite knocked up – dead beat, Mark.’

‘You won’t say that to-morrow morning sir,’ returned Mr Tapley; ‘nor even to-night, sir, when you have made a trial of this.’ With which he produced a very large tumbler, piled up to the brim with little blocks of clear transparent ice, through which one or two thin slices of lemon, and a golden liquid of delicious appearance, appealed from the still depths below, to the loving eye of the spectator.

‘What do you call this?’ said Martin.

But Mr. Tapley made no answer; merely plunging a reed into the mixture — which caused a pleasant commotion among the pieces of ice — and signifying by an expressive gesture that it was to be pumped up through that agency by the enraptured drinker.

Martin took the glass with an astonished look; applied his lips to the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more until the goblet was drained to the last drop.

‘This wonderful invention, sir,’ said Mark, tenderly patting the empty glass, ‘is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler when you name it long; cobbler when you name it short.

Cambridge, Summer 1844

In July 1844 when Charles Astor Bristed and his fellow, Fellows, languished in the cool comfort of his rooms overlooking the willow lined river Cam, the question of Sherry Cobbler arose.

“Bristed did you ever drink Sherry Cobbler?”

“I have.”

“Can you make it?”

He had to confess it had been many years since he’d concocted one. The real problem, he said, lay not in recalling the recipe – sherry, soda, lemon, and crushed ice – but the difficulty of procuring some of the requisite materials. First, he had to find large tumblers, which proved not too tricky. But obtaining clear ice presented a challenge. In England ‘ice’ was understood as being ‘ice-cream’. The idea of simple, clear ice garnishing a drink, caused much astonishment. One of their number claimed they had influence with a local confectioner who they believed could make clear ice. The next thing was to find straws for drinking the liquid.

Imagine the puzzlement and hilarity of the two milliners Bristed accosted on the Market Square, Cambridge, in his quest for straws to drink from. Of course, young women were strongly discouraged from fraternising with members of the university. It could lead to arrest and imprisonment if done once darkness fell. But on that bright sunny summer’s day innocent giggles, and an eagerness to fulfil the request of a wealthy gentleman, led to an enjoyable experiment. Wheat stalks were baked to hardness in the oven. It worked. Keeping straw pliable was the usual task of milliners, but in this case, they did the opposite.

Six days later the tasting took place. As Bristed poured and mixed- the cobbler shaker was yet to be invented – ten curious pairs of eyes watched his every move. He mixed and muddled, he tasted, made adjustments, until finally satisfaction was reached.

He took an experimental suck, to educate his friends on the use of the straw and handed over a glass to the designated tester. The eyes of the party were now directed to the brave young man. Using one had to hold the glass, the other steady the straw. He bent his head down and applied his lips to the curious drinking apparatus pausing for one short moment, before greedily taking a longer draught. ‘It will do,’ he announced. High praise from an English gentleman. Straightaway every man seized a knife and a lemon, and the manufacture of cobblers went on.

It might not have been the first Sherry Cobbler made in England, but it was the first at Oxford or Cambridge, and remains Charles Astor Bristed’s main claim to fame.

Dickens, Charles: Martin Chuzzlewit

Stray, Christopher (ed) An American in Victorian Cambridge