Smoking Bishop is a type of punch that was consumed in Victorian England during the Christmas season. It has remained somewhat well-known due to it being mentioned towards the conclusion of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

In the novel, Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning a changed man following visits from several ghosts the night before. He greets his clerk Bob Cratchit, and tells him “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!” An image from the original edition then shows Scrooge serving Cratchet some Smoking Bishop from a steaming punch bowl.

Dickens did have a personal recipe for a Christmas Punch using Jamaica Rum, citrus, and brandy, however this was different from Smoking Bishop which used port wine instead of rum and brandy, and included other ingredients, including an entire lemon with cloves embedded in it.

The oldest recipe for Smoking Bishop can be found in a treatise called Apician Anecdotes, Or, Tales of the Table, Kitchen and Larder that was published in 1836. This same recipe was included verbatim in Modern Cookery for Private Families which was written by Eliza Acton in 1845.

The recipe for Smoking Bishop is as follows;

Make several incisions into the rind of a lemon; stick cloves in these incisions, and roast the said lemon by the fire. Put small but equal quantities of cinnamon, mace, cloves, and allspice, and a race of ginger, into a saucepan, with half a pint of water; let it boil until it be reduced one half. Boil one bottle of port wine; burn a portion of the spirit out of it, by applying a lighted taper to the saucepan which contains it. Put the roasted lemons and spice into the wine; stir it up well, and let it stand near the fire ten minutes. Rub a few nobs of sugar on the rind of a lemon; put the sugar into a bowl or jug, with the juice of half a lemon, (not roasted) pour the wine upon it, sweeten it to your taste, and serve it up with the lemon and spice floating in it.

Food Historian Max Miller examines the history of this drink, and concludes his video by making a big bowl of Smoking Bishop.