How to throw a party- [Added October, 30, 2008]

British Forces Ball, 1746:

Punch recipe - The bowl was a marble basin...filled with four large barrels of brandy, eight barrels of filtered water, twenty-five thousands citrons, eighty pints of lemon juice, thirteen hundredweight of sugar, five pounds of nutmeg, three hundred biscuits, and a pipe of Malaga wine.  An awning over the basin protected it from the rain, which might have disturbed the chemical composition of the delicious beverage; and in a charming little rosewood boat, a cabin boy, belonging to the fleet, rowed about on the surface of the punch, ready to serve the joyous company, which numbered more than six thousand persons.