Hypnogoria: THE OLDTIME YULETIDE ADVENT CALENDAR

Welcome dear friends back to the Hypnogoria Old-time Yuletide Advent Calendar! Door 19 beckons and inside here we will discover why S is for Smoking Bishop!

Now many readers of A Christmas Carol may been somewhat puzzled by an exchange between the newly reformed Scrooge and dear old Bob Cratchit at the book’s finale -

“A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!”

Now given the proximity of the words “smoking” and “bowl”, modern readers may well be forgiven for thinking that this was a reference to the happy gents enjoying a pleasant smoke on their pipes somewhere. However I can reveal that Smoking Bishop was a very popular Christmas drink in Victorian times.

The book Modern Cookery by Eliza Acton published in 1845, outlines the recipe thus -

Make several incisions in the rind of a lemon, stick cloves in these, and roast the lemon by a slow fire. Put small but equal quantities of cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice, with a race of ginger, into a saucepan with half a pint of water: let it boil until it is reduced one-half. Boil one bottle of port wine, burn a portion of the spirit out of it by applying a lighted paper to the saucepan; put the roasted lemon and spice into the wine; stir it up well, and let it stand near the fire ten minutes. Rub a few knobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon, put the sugar into a bowl or jug, with the juice of half a lemon (not roasted), pour the wine into it, grate in some nutmeg, sweeten it to the taste, and serve it up with the lemon and spice floating in it.

So then, not a drink you can expect a bar steward to whip up in a jiffy! The drink is thought to have mediaeval origins, however it gained in popularity in the 17th century when fortified wines such as port became much cheaper thanks to trade treaties with Southern European countries such as Portugal. With political strife raising the tax and duty on French wine, port proved to be a popular and more affordable alternative. And hence while mulled wine had long been a favourite festive tipple, with these new boozonomics, folks embraced these old recipes for spicy hot tipples made with stronger drinks such as port.

As for its colourful name, the “smoking” part comes from roasting the citrus fruits, while the clerical bit came from the drink’s mediaeval origins when it was served in bowls that resembled a bishop’s mitre, as a little joke at the church’s expense.

And Smoking Bishop was but one of a family of similar mulled spicy tipples known as "ecclesiastics" as they all had a clerical name. There was Smoking Pope made with burgundy, Smoking Cardinal made with champagne or Rhine wine, Smoking Archbishop with claret; and Smoking Beadle which was merely laced with raisins and ginger wine.

Sadly Smoking Bishop’s popularity declined in the 20th century, to the extent that most only know of it as a puzzling reference in Dickens, however port very much remains a popular festive favourite. And with mulled wine recipes enjoying something of a resurgence in recent years, maybe Smoking Bishop may yet return.