Ahoy me hearties! September 19th is international talk like a pirate day which
has to be the weirdest parody holiday to like stick around,
but it's a great excuse to make Captain Kidd's rum punch from 1688.
Pirate punch this time on Drinking History.
On the day after Christmas in 1688 Captain William Kidd found himself in a tavern in Antigua
with the Captain Hewittson and Governor Christopher Codrington.
The governor was hiring the two captains as privateers and giving them instructions
over some rum punch which an eyewitness described as
"Rum, water, lime juice, egg yolk, sugar, with a little nutmeg scraped on top."
Seems easy enough so let's make some.
So for this recipe what you'll need is two ounces of rum.
Now as they were in Antigua I am using an Antigua rum called English Harbor
that I got from Curiada which is a website where you can get all sorts of liquors,
but they really specialize in those hard to find spirits such as this rum right here.
They deliver to most of the US and ordering online is really easy, and shipping is free
on any orders over two hundred dollars. So I will put a link in the description to where you can get this rum.
So we'll measure out about two ounces, maybe a little bit more,
and we're also going to just take a sip just of the rum. You know just to see what it's like.
[Glug, glug]
Oh I like that. There's a little sweetness to it.
It's not much burn which I like. It has that kind of dark caramel flavors. It almost, you
know what it actually reminds me of, there is a fruitiness to it.
It reminds me of bananas foster.
I really like that. It's also really smooth,
almost like- smooth texture wise.
That's some good rum.
You'll also need two ounces of water, or more or less or really whatever you want,
and then the juice of half a lime squeeze that in there. I didn't bring my squeezer and that's okay,
and two tablespoons of turbinado sugar, and one egg.
Now he calls for a an egg yolk or the person mentioning this calls for an egg yolk.
I'm going to use a whole egg, it's not going to affect the flavor very much and give a nice froth to it
so we'll just crack that right in there.
And then we shake. Now they would have probably not had ice at this time in
Antigua so we're not using any ice, but if you wanted to use ice
you would not be- you'd be forgiven for doing so
and then we'll just strain and pour,
or pour and strain, I don't know which
and then of course you just add a bit of nutmeg scraped on top,
or a lot of nutmeg because I like a lot of nutmeg.
And here we are, our Captain Kidd punch from 1688.
And I would call it pirate punch. I think I have called it pirate punch but is that really fair,
because I've covered pirates a couple times here on the show on Tasting History.
Once in the episode on guacamole and then once in the hardtack episode,
but many times those pirates blur the lines between pirate and privateer
and the big difference is a privateer has a piece of paper from a government
saying it's okay to attack any ships that don't belong to our government and that
we're at war with as long as we get a bit of a cut, usually about 10%.
But perhaps no man blurred the lines between pirate and privateer more than the infamous and murderous Captain William Kidd.
Though I ask you does this look like the face of a pirate? More like a composer or a scientist perhaps.
So does he deserve the reputation that he gets or was it all just merely a misunderstanding?
Born in Scotland in 1655 Captain Kidd's career really began when he went to New York city
to sign up and become a privateer.
One of his early voyages was when the governor of the island of Nevis, Christopher Codrington,
hired Kidd along with several others to attack and steal nearby French trading vessels,
and it's perfectly legal because he had that piece of paper from the governor.
In fact a proclamation from 1664 says "It is lawful for all... seamen to take... as pillage...
all such goods and merchandise as shall be found by them... upon or above the gun deck of the prize ship."
And that went for privateers and normal sailors alike. Unfortunately for Kidd most of his crew
that he had hired were former pirates.
And "His men wanted to go a-pirateering and he refused and his men seized upon the ship."
Yes, one day while Kidd was ashore one of his men Robert Culliford
stole the ship that had all of the treasure that they had got up to that point, took the ship,
took the treasure and took the crew, but Kidd was able to put that behind him and got another privateering contract
this time signed by William III King of England himself.
He was tasked with finding and attacking pirate ships in and around the Indian Ocean and for the job
he got a new ship called the Adventure Galley. He also got a new crew of upstanding and loyal sailors
but while sailing out of London they passed a navy yacht and did not salute which was a sign of disrespect.
So the navy yacht fired their cannon just saying 'hey show us some respect', and instead all of his men
mooned the ship and slapped their butts so that didn't go well.
The navy was so mad that they impressed, fancy word for stole, most of Captain Kidd's crew
and he kind of had to limp his way to New York City with a very small crew.
Then once he got there the only new crew that he could find were...
former pirates.
Pirates searching for pirates.
Things were not going well so far,
but off he went anyway to find those pirates, but a year and a half into the voyage
they hadn't found one pirate.
Then in October of 1697 they did come across a vessel.
It wasn't a pirate ship, it was a Dutch vessel and all of the men wanted to attack it but
seeing as William III the King of England was actually Dutch
you know Captain Kidd thought well that doesn't seem like a good idea so he said no.
He got into an argument with Thomas Moore his gunner and he called him a lousy dog and Moore said
"If I am a lousy dog you have made me so you have brought me to ruin and many more."
Kidd having a bad temper hit him with a bucket made of iron
and killed him, and
while sea captains at this time had a lot of freedom on their ships they couldn't just kill one of their crew members.
That was murder so yeah, still not going well.
But almost two years into the voyage they finally came across a ship that they could take.
It was called the Quedagh Merchant and it was flying French flags so they came up alongside it also flying French flags as kind
of a ruse and they took the ship by force only to find out that the captain was English
and it was one of the very few ships where the French and the English were playing well together and
yeah really shouldn't have taken it, but it was kind of too late. The men were already there and
so William Kidd was like all right I guess we're pirates now.
So he takes the ship to Madagascar and there he finally runs in to their first actual pirates,
and of all the pirates in all the world who was it?
It was Robert Culliford, that same pirate who had stole his ship treasure and crew
all those years before, but this time it would be different, right?
No, he stole all the crew again, didn't take a ship
but all of the crew except for 13 abandoned Captain Kidd, and went to Culliford. So
Kidd had to limp back to the Caribbean with a crew of 13 but at this point he had two ships.
You can't do that with 13 people so he had to scuttle one of the ships.
So the Adventure Galley was gone and all that he had now was the Quedagh Merchant which he renamed the Adventure Prize and
he got to the Caribbean only to find out that now he is the most wanted pirate in the entire world,
specifically that ship everyone's on the lookout for, so he had to sink that one too.
So now he has no ship, he has no crew and all of his treasure's gone,
and so he heads back to New York City on somebody else's ship
so he can explain that this whole thing has just been a misunderstanding.
Unfortunately when he gets there he gets arrested and thrown into prison,
and eventually sent to London to be put on trial for murder and piracy.
Now Kidd claimed that there were documents
available that showed that everything that he had been doing was actually legal privateering but
those documents couldn't be found during the trial so he was found guilty
and he was hanged
twice, because the first time the rope broke.
The second time it took then his body was gibbeted over the river Thames as a warning
to future would-be pirates.
Now Kidd never actually confessed to anything. He maintained his innocence but
soon after he died a song was released that became very, very popular
and the lyrics were told from Captain Kidd's point of view
and in the song he admits to everything. To being a pirate, to giving his soul over to the devil,
and "I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed' I murdered William Moore, as I sailed.
I murdered William Moore, and I left him in his gore, not many leagues from shore, as I sailed."
And people took that song as an actual confession and that basically wrote the story of Captain Kidd
for the next few centuries. He appeared in lots of books and poems by famous authors always as this
hardened pirate criminal, and it wasn't until the early 20th century that those documents
that couldn't be found during the trial were found more or less proving that all right maybe, maybe
he wasn't so so wrong.
So pirate or privateer, or a little bit of both
we'll probably never really know but let us raise a glass to old Captain Kidd.
Now I'm gonna finally try this drink, let's go.
I just love how the froth like tickles my nose. Okay that's really, really good.
You get that creaminess from the egg but you know that's why I like adding
eggs to mixed drinks like egg whites and stuff because it doesn't really influence the flavor.
Just gives this wonderful wonderful texture. You get the nutmeg because obviously it's the very
first thing that hits your mouth, but I'm thinking once I get all that nutmeg that'll go away.
It's really, really sweet because of the the sugar but it's not unpleasantly so.
It's a wonderful balance between the sweetness of the sugar and this excellent excellent rum.
Now I do think that it would be good with a bit of ice but even at room temperature it's quite refreshing. So
yeah I suppose maybe I could have been a privateer if all that I had to do was was drink privateer punch.
So make sure to make some privateer or pirate punch for talk like a pirate day this weekend,
and yeah I'll see you next time on Drinking History.
Argh!