What’s in a name?

Rambooze

Rambooze

Back in October I was skimming Twitter and saw the word “Rambooze” for the first time in my life in this tweet from the Shakespeare’s World transcription project. Listed among other drinks in Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.363, a late seventeenth-century receipt book, this eggy punch immediately caught my attention. What in the world was Rambooze?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word originates in the seventeenth-century and specifically refers to  an alcoholic drink made with wine, eggs, milk, sugar, and other ingredients. Thomas Blount provides this definition in his 1656 dictionary:  Glossographia, “Rambooz, a compound drink, at Cambridge, and is commonly made of Eggs, Ale, Wine and Sugar; but in Summer, of Milk, Wine, Sugar, and Rose water.” The compiler of the Folger manuscript was on-trend. Additional spellings in the OED include rambuzze, rambooz, rambuze, rambooze, ramboose. These are important because the mark the shift of  the letter “z” into the word “booze” replacing the “s” in the Middle English words “bouse” and “bowse.” Thanks to “rambooze,” we now have “booze.”

With a name like this, I had to give Rambooze a try. Luckily, Whitney, Sarah, Phil, and Joseph were curious to try it, too.

 The Recipe

Ramboose
Take one quart of Rhenish or White Wine three Eggs whites and Yolks
well beaten and strained through a Cotton cloth sugar to your tast
brew them well together with Nuttmeg or Ginger, you may also add as
much Ale or water as you please

ramboose

ramboose

ramboose

ramboose