12 ounces porter beer
1 1/2 ounces dark Caribbean rum
3/4 ounce lime juice
1/2 ounce brown sugar syrup (1:1, sugar:water)
Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg
Add all ingredients to a large beer mug and stir gently to combine. Sprinkle with freshly grated nutmeg over the top before serving.
Colonial Americans drank very differently from the way we drink today. Cocktails weren’t exactly a thing just yet, but on special occasions punch was about as close as they got. Most of the time most people drank much more simply: Cider, beer, wine, or maybe straight spirits, like rum or whiskey, served room temperature. If they were feeling really fancy they might add some water and maybe even some sugar to their spirits, or sometimes they’d mix things together.
Flip, Bellow-Stop, Yard of Flannel, and Stone Fence were all common tavern drinks that combined spirits with beer or cider. Another popular colonial era concoction mixed beer, in this case a porter, with dark Caribbean rum (sometimes they’d use brandy or applejack), a little sugar and nutmeg, and sometimes some lime juice if they had it. This common colonial era beverage was called a Rattle Skull, which was a British slang term for someone who talked too much. It basically meant that if you drank a Rattle Skull you’d be spilling all the tea at the local tavern.
