Tag Archives: Roman Punch

Drink Up & Tweetup with Campbell House and Distilled History!

distilled historyMark your cal­en­dar!  All of us here at CHM are very excit­ed to part­ner with Dis­tilled His­to­ry, win­ner of the River­front Times 2013 St. Louis Web Award for Best Per­son­al Blog, and host a Tweet­up on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 27th cel­e­brat­ing St. Louis his­to­ry and Smith­son­ian Muse­um Day!  We’ll be about a block away from where Taste of St. Louis is going down, so keep in mind that you can stop on by and then head on over to Sol­diers Memo­r­i­al to enjoy all that Taste has to offer.

What, you might be ask­ing, makes this Tweet­up extra fun and inter­est­ing?  Well, not only do you get to expe­ri­ence the Camp­bell House Muse­um (for free), not only do you get to hang out with some awe­some mem­bers of the St. Louis twit­ter­verse (for free), not only do you get the chance to sign up for tick­ets to Camp­bell House and oth­er muse­ums for Smith­son­ian Muse­um Day (for free), not only do you get to have some great food pro­vid­ed by the deli­cious Maya Cafe (for… well, you get the point. This whole shindig is free.), but you get to have a drink while you do it!

We’re going to be tak­ing a look at St. Louis and Camp­bell his­to­ry from the unique (and quite enjoy­able) per­spec­tive of beer, wine, and spir­its.  We’ll have a great selec­tion of Schlafly beer, wine, Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s famous Roman Punch, and a spe­cial­ly pre­pared batch of home­made bath­tub gin for your tast­ing delight.  Let me reit­er­ate that last point: there will be bath­tub gin. Our friend Cameron (who hap­pens to be Dis­tilled His­to­ry’s award-win­ning author) will be brew­ing it up, and he assures us it’s per­fect­ly safe… just a lit­tle, erm, strong.  Click here to read more about his bath­tub gin experimentation.

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Recipe for Roman Punch from Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s 1860 cook­book… don’t wor­ry, ours will be sans eggs.

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Pres­i­dent Grant’s cup, with “U.S.G.” inscribed on its side

In addi­tion to the out of the ordi­nary nature of the Tweet­up, we’ll be hav­ing a pret­ty unique, one of a kind raf­fle.  For a buck or two, you (yes you!) get a free drink!  But, since all the drinks will tech­ni­cal­ly be free, we decid­ed to make it pret­ty spe­cial.  The win­ner of this raf­fle gets to take a swig out of a cup once belong­ing to Pres­i­dent U.S. Grant, who was quite the drinker him­self.  It’s in the col­lec­tion here at Camp­bell House and we’re pulling it out of the vault so that a lucky attendee can have the chance to join in some his­tor­i­cal com­mu­nion with our late great, high tol­er­anced for­mer president.

So, let’s recap:

1.) Great food and drink

2.) A unique look at St. Louis and Camp­bell history

3.) The chance to take a swig from a cup belong­ing to Pres­i­dent U.S. Grant

4.) Oppor­tu­ni­ty to hang out with mem­bers of the STL Twitterverse

5.) Sign up for free tick­ets to CHM and oth­er great muse­ums for Smith­son­ian Muse­um Day

6.) It’s free. (though we cer­tain­ly won’t sneeze at donations)

The only thing miss­ing?  You.

So swing by after work from 4–6 pm on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 27th.  Spend an hour, spend five min­utes, what­ev­er floats your boat.  Taste of St. Louis will be going on down­town, about a block away from us (and we’ll have park­ing… hint hint) We’d love to see you there!

TwitterShoot us a tweet for more info:

@campbellmuseum  or  @distlhistory

#drinkuptweetupSTL

Valentine’s Day at Campbell House with the London Tea Room

It’s time to start plan­ning a spe­cial Valen­tine’s Day fete with your sweet­iekins! For­get the same ol’ crowd­ed bars and restau­rants, and let Camp­bell House take care of your night. At 6:00 PM on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012, bring your spe­cial some­one over to the house for a high tea host­ed by our pals from the Lon­don Tea Room.

This is what’s cookin:

  • Upon arrival, toast this day of romance and love with a glass of Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s Roman (read: Cham­pagne) Punch.* While wait­ing for the culi­nary bac­cha­na­lia, you can explore our house, one of the coun­try’s finest exam­ples of high Vic­to­ri­an inte­ri­or decor.
  • After you get com­fort­able seat­ed at a table in the Par­lor, Morn­ing Room, Din­ing Room or Kitchen, you will enjoy the fol­low­ing delicacies: 
    • An assort­ment of fin­ger sand­wich­es, includ­ing smoked salmon on wheat; ham on rye with grain mus­tard mayo; and cucum­ber on cream cheese with dill and chives.
    • Tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish black cur­rant scone, served with Devon­shire cream and jam.
    • Selec­tion of beau­ti­ful petit fours.
    • A per­son­al pot of tea, reg­u­lar or decaf.
  • We’re going to dig through our archive to find some excep­tion­al lovey-dovey-themed Camp­bell pieces (yep, we have a lot of these…Robert and Vir­ginia were crazy about each oth­er) to dis­play for this evening only.
  • When you leave, you’ll receive a good­ie bag with tea dis­count cards, pass­es for free admis­sion to Camp­bell House, infor­ma­tion on Vic­to­ri­an Valen­tine’s Day tra­di­tions, and a copy of one of Robert and Vir­gini­a’s love let­ters, along with some oth­er choice loot.

Tick­ets are $45.00 each, and Lon­don Tea Room will be donat­ing $12.50 of each tick­et to Camp­bell House. Ready to make your reser­va­tion? Give us a ring at 314/421‑0325 with your Visa, Mas­ter­card or Dis­cov­er to hold your seats. We only have 36 seats avail­able, so call us ear­ly — we think this is going to be a big hit.

*Roman Punch is a tra­di­tion­al palate-cleans­ing drink that was often served between savory cours­es. If you want to make a batch at home, here’s a mod­ern­ized ver­sion of Vir­gini­a’s recipe:

Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s Roman Punch
1 12-oz can frozen lemonade
1 12-oz can of water
4 T frozen orange concentrate
Zest of one orange
2/3 bot­tle of champagne
In a blender, blitz lemon­ade, water, orange con­cen­trate, and zest. Pour mix­ture into a con­tain­er suit­able for freez­ing and add cham­pagne. Mix well and freeze. When ready to serve, thaw to make a slush and serve. Enjoy!