In other words, I shall not dwell on them in detail. Besides, America’s greatest innovation in the art of compounding Punch was to greatly extend James Ashley’s work in applying the technologies of miniaturization and just-in-time production to the process, turning it from a large-bore social drink to an on-the-fly statement of individual desire—and, in the process, putting an end to its rule. We did do one thing right, anyway. Even the most reactionary English bowl-scourer would have agreed that a tiff of iced Punch on a hot day was a welcome thing. It’s unclear exactly when ice and Punch first met, but it probably happened long before the Tortonis and Mr. Maddisons did their work—England had a small but long-standing tradition of ice-cooled drinks. In 1666, for example, we find Pepys recording that metheglin is a “most brave drink cooled in ice.” In England, however, ice was hard to get and expensive: private icehouses existed on the great estates, but in the metropolis, the water was too dirty and the freezing too spotty to support an extensive industry.
