A recipe for a very merry Christmas drink for 17th century monks, beginning with ten pints of brandy, has been rediscovered by a Durham university academic, in the archives of Ampleforth Abbey in north Yorkshire.

The recipes – there were two similar versions, one for a punch, one for a drink known as “shrub” – were written down for English Benedictine monks who were in exile in France after the dissolution of the monasteries. Both were flavoured with orange and lemon peel, with added sugar and water, and involved days of steeping and mixing the ingredients.

Although monastic communities commonly drank alcohol because the quality of drinking water was so unreliable, these recipes were clearly not an everyday tipple. Dr James Kelly, from the department of theology and religion at Durham University, said the volume of the ingredients and the care that went into them were significant.

“The quantity, and the time taken to make the drink, suggests that this was something to be enjoyed on special occasions by the whole monastic community – not a quick drink for cocktail hour.”

He discovered the recipes as part of his Monks in Motion project, which looked into the travels and influence of the English Benedictine Monks after they were forced into exile.

Ampleforth was founded when the monks had to move again after the French Revolution, and returned to England as the anti-Catholic laws were gradually relaxed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As the archives prove, they brought their favourite recipes back with them.

The name of the monastic order is still associated with the sweet herbal liqueur Benedictine, which was claimed to have been created by them at the great abbey in Fécamp in France –. But it was in fact a brilliant marketing wheeze by the 19th century entrepreneur who invented it.

