Well, it’s finally Fall and my wife has been binging Little Dorrit on PBS.   Since I haven’t posted any new recipes lately, I thought it time I put out a Fall classic – the SMOKING BISHOP. 

Fine oranges well roasted with sugar and wine in a cup, they’ll make a sweet Bishop when gentlefolk sup.  — Jonathan Swift

The Smoking Bishop is a great twist on mulled wine, a marvelous mixture of port, oranges and spices.  The drink is smoking because the oranges, preferably bitter Seville oranges, that have been roasted until blackened. Sometimes mulled wine can be a bit harsh because too many strong spices are added.  The Smoking Bishop uses fewer spices, just cloves. The only other aromatics in the drink are the oils released from the burnt bitter orange rinds and like everything in the 18^th Century, it relies heavily on more than a little dark brown sugar to soften up the taste.  

Because of the many conflicts between England and France in the late 18^th and early 19^th Centuries many port drinks were create.  When not at war, France and England engaged in a tit-for-tat game of tariffs on trade making French wine – the preferred drink at the time – too expensive for most people, and so eyes moved to Spain where the best wines were port.  Smoking Bishop is a punch that can be made ahead of time, strained, and reheated with great success.

• One fifth gallon (750 ml) bottle of red wine (like Cabernet)
• 3 oranges, (Seville, is traditional)
• 8 cloves
• Pint (250 ml) of water
• Dark brown sugar to taste (~1lb or 450 grams)

Place the oranges on a tray and bake at 400°F or 205°C for around 25 minutes until they have started to blacken and give off their delicious burnt aroma. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little before slicing them up.  Next, pour the full bottle of port into a pan along with the oranges and any orange juicy bits, as well as the cloves and water then bring the mix to a simmer.  DO NOT BOIL! Keep the mixture at a scalding temperature (180°F or 80°C) for around 20 minutes.  Add sugar to taste – if the oranges are very bitter and black, you might need quite a bit. If you don’t want bits of orange pulp and clove floating about in the drink, strain the mixture before adding the sugar.

The drink is named bishop because it is one of several drinks once known as ‘ecclesiasticals’; drinks named after various orders within the Catholic church. If you use white wine like chardonnay instead of red wine and you get a Smoking Priest; use port wine and you have a Smoking Cardinal; if you use champagne and you’ve got yourself a smoking pope.  Other variations of the Smoking Bishop substitute lemons for the oranges and using a fortified wine like Maderia instead of port.  Then there is, of course, the Smoking Archbishop which is made like a Smoking Bishop but with claret, then topped off with a tot of brandy when served.  Heresy can be quite tasty and enjoyable if done well.

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