Punch bowl

A punch bowl or punchbowl is a bowl, often large and wide, for serving mixed drinks such as hippocras, punch or mulled wine, with a ladle. A monteith (seau crennelé in French) is a similar bowl, usually of silver or pottery, scalloped around the edge. It was mainly a wine cooler, designed for cooling glasses in icy water, the feet of the glasses held in the notches, but could be used as a punchbowl. Monteiths appear in Britain around 1680, and were popular until the 1720s or so.

Very large examples, like the Jerningham wine cooler, are usually called a wine cistern. These were more often used as wine coolers, for cooling wine bottles with icy water, but for a large party might be used as punchbowls. Tureens normally used for soup or other food might also be used.

Hippocras, wine with herbs and spices, and mulled wine, similar but more likely to be served hot, go back to the Middle Ages, indeed ancient times. In Ancient Greek pottery, the krater is a large (sometimes extremely large, as in the Vix Krater) mixing-bowl for wine, of similar rounded shape, but with two horizontal handles.

The word punch is a loanword from Hindi. The original drink was named paantsch, which is Hindi for "five", and the drink was made from five different ingredients: spirit, sugar, lemon, water or tea and spices. The drink was brought back from India to England by the sailors and employees of the British East India Company in the early seventeenth century, and from there it was introduced into other European countries.

Punch quickly became a popular drink. It was served in punch bowls, usually ceramic or silver, which were often elaborately decorated. Punch bowls sometimes had lids or were supported on a stand; other accessories such as a serving ladle and cups in which to serve the drink sometimes accompanied the punch bowl. Punch bowls were often painted with inscriptions or were used for testimonial purposes: the first successful whaling voyage from Liverpool was commemorated by a punch bowl presented by the owners of the ship to its captain.

The ubiquity of the punch bowl as a household item is illustrated in this 1832 quote:

The punch-bowl was an indispensable vessel in every house above the humblest class. And there were many kindly recollections connected with it, it being very frequently given as a present. No young married couple ever thought of buying a punch-bowl; it was always presented to them by a near-relative.

Occasionally, less likely vessels were used as punch bowls, such as a marble fountain to serve 6,000: