The Great Punch Revival!
It was a welcome sight a few years back, after reading David Wondrich’s Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl and going deep on the (antique) idea of “punch”, that some of the leading bars in the country began to make real estate on their menus for punch. Some made their entire menu revolve around communal drinking, a thought opposing the idea of a cocktail: strong, short and personalized just for you. Dead Rabbit, Jeffrey Morgenthaler at Clyde Common, and other industry leaders started giving it love. It just made sense for a bar program. The idea of “more-ish”, as Wondrich puts it, is exactly how you want your guests to feel: comfortable, enjoying themselves, and unable to stop craving a little more of this incredible liquid! The beauty, though, is that it makes even more sense for the home bartender. Parties, New Year’s Eve, dinners with friends, or even batched as gifts, punch has so many applications that are overlooked it makes you want to smack your forehead. It only takes a small financial investment and a little planning to make something that is phenomenal and crowd-pleasing. So where do we start?
Punch has some not-so-P.C. history that relates back to conquering of foreign lands and colonialization. Yea, we aren’t going to crack that one open, but instead we’ll just talk about their business venture, the East India Trading Company. So, the British start traveling back and forth on these long voyages to trade and take advantage of what is to offer over in the East Indies and the surrounding area (different food, spices, fruit, and other assets). As they explored the culture and took stock of what they had in front of them something came across their desk, so to speak, and the officers took a liking. “Panj” or “panch”, meaning “five” in Hindi, was the so-called name for a beverage consisting of (you guessed it!) five ingredients. Give a little time and introduce a foreign accent and that word morphs into “punch”! Just like today, the five ingredients weren’t defined explicitly, but rather 5 categories. It would consist of a spirit, tea, citrus, sugar and spices. It really hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. We can simplify this a bit since we currently have more options as ingredients to work with and call them as such: strong, weak, sour, sweet, and spice. We will look at an example later to break this down further.
So, why does this actually make sense for the home bartender? Well imagine you are entertaining a few, or 30, friends over at your house for a holiday get together. People bring some wine for dinner. Maybe someone brings a bottle of whiskey for after dinner (How nice!). We need something to loosen up the guests and give some liquid courage to get conversation flowing and make the early mingling a bit easier in case they don’t all know each other well. (Insert punch!) You, as host, put out a beautiful crystal bowl (it doesn’t have to be beautiful or crystal, but it makes for nice presentation) with a ladle and some small glassware or even cheap plastic cups. The garnish is already in the punch. It is chilled and not too strong, so no one gets “schnockered” before dinner. It’s a crowd-pleaser! It tastes great to the cocktail afficionado of the group as well as your friend who just loves and only drinks Cosmos. You don’t need to stand around and take orders one by one from your guests for what they’d like to drink. You don’t have to make 30 different cocktails. You don’t need to stock 15 different bottles to appease everyone tastes. And in the end, they never realized punch could be so delicious! You win!
As a massive fan of all things dinner parties, the biggest no-no is trying to do too much once people arrive. The biggest focus any new host needs to remember is to prep everything so when people arrive you can mingle and be part of the crowd. It’s your job to welcome guests in, show them around, help them get settled and make introductions. You don’t need to be bartender or line cook or dishwasher right now. Punch is your answer for that exact dilemma.
Now, onto the important part. How the hell do we make punch? I don’t want to make this big batched thing and screw it up! What a waste of time and good booze that would be! Don’t worry. Follow recipes but remember to taste and adjust as you see fit. Let’s breakdown the parts to see our options.
Strong – Choose your base. This can be a spirit, but it can also be wine-based (lower alcohol to keep your guests standing upright). You can even do a split-base (say, whiskey and some sherry or sparkling wine) which will keep the alcohol in check, deliver texture, but keep the flavor train heading in the right direction.
Weak – This is something without alcohol. Tea is the traditional and that is a huge category. Green tea works great with whiskies and gin, white tea is delicate but still brings pretty notes. Oolong can bring body and texture. Black tea brings tannins and weight to a citrus heavy punch. This can also be water. This can also get creative and be coconut water or herbal tea or, hell, even coffee if you use it right. (Café Brulot pic here.)
Sour – We’re looking at you, citrus. The best options are still, without a doubt, lemons and limes with supporting roles of oranges or grapefruits or other variations that bring both sour and sweet. Flavored vinegars are possible but can be tricky to balance. Things like tamarind can even bring a fun tang if used well, but that may take pro-level skills.
Sweet – Balance! Next, we introduce our sugar to balance out the sour component and give more body and texture to the punch. Now, the obvious option here is white (granulated) sugar. This works just fine in many scenarios. However, there are options to consider. If you’re playing with white wine or gin or something light in color, granulated sugar is probably the best choice. If you’re playing with brown spirits or anything dark, then maybe the earthy, richness of some other sugars may elevate your punch even more. There’s demerara, turbinado, muscovado, cane sugar, maple syrup or even honey. Just remember to taste because some sugars do not deliver nearly the same sweetness punch as others and can even bring the funk.
Spice – Pick your aromas. This is the vaguest ingredient because spice can arrive in many different forms. Traditionally, it was added (or grated) on top of the punch in the form of nutmeg (the most common finishing ingredient), cinnamon, or other warm baking spice. However, some prefer to make a simple or compound syrup with the spices added in to warm them and open them up. This would cover two categories at once. Bitters can also be the source of your “spice” in that bitters, besides being bitter, typically have some type of spice incorporated into them. The spice may also be steeped into your tea (weak ingredient) in the form of chai or other compound flavored tea. The choice is really yours. If you’re nervous, stick with fresh grated nutmeg on top and you can’t go wrong.
Now, you may feel overwhelmed with all the options in front of you. You may not be ready to riff and invent your first punch yet and just want a recipe. Don’t worry. I’ll offer up a couple. In the meantime, here are a few more pro tips from making many punches to please your friends.
#1: DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! Oleo sacchrum. Consider this the “je ne sais quoi” of your punch that elevates all punches to greatness. I will go so far as to say you cannot make great punch without it. It requires planning and a couple minutes to make, but no more. Peel 3-5 citrus fruits of your choice that will highlight the flavors going in the punch. Try to get as much peel and as little pith (the bitter white part between the peel and the flesh of the fruit) as you can. Place the peels in small bowl or container and add enough sugar to heavily cover. Use a coarse sugar so you can rough up the peels. Muddle the sugar into the peels to “bruise” them with a muddler or even just put a lid on and toss them around in the sugar. They will release their oils into the sugar, and this will create a sublime addition to your punch that is intangible. Give them at least an hour and as much as overnight in the fridge to release the oils. This is the flavor base for our punch.
#2: Use the weak ingredient, especially if using tea, to dissolve the oleo sacchrum. Cold liquid doesn’t dissolve sugar crystals well. It will happen eventually, but a burst of hot tea or even warm water can be enough to kickstart the dissolving process so the crystals aren’t left whole at the bottom of your punch.
#3: When in doubt, keep it simple. Trust me. I’ve made a lot of punches. I have tried to use mediocre ingredients that were free to make a decent punch and cover up their mediocrity with other complex flavors. In the end, it makes a very mediocre punch. Keep it simple. Less competing flavors allow for better cohesion in your punch. Better ingredients facilitate less ingredients because the ones you are using are so good. No need to get the 30-year-old single malt scotch, but a solid scotch or a decent bottle of brandy are much better than the bargain bin. Plus, if you drink cheap, you’ll feel it the next day.
#4: Add bubbly ingredients last. As with most any bubbly addition, we don’t want all the lovely bubbles to dissipate by the time our guests arrive. Don’t worry about being super delicate with them but add them in last minute and give them a quick stir before guests arrive and it’ll deliver the right texture.
#5: Make ahead of time, if you can. Much like soup, punch gets better with time. It will come together and taste even better if you can make it the night before and let it marinate over night in the fridge. The next day, pull it out and throw a big chunk of ice (maybe one you made in a Tupperware container with citrus suspended inside it the day before). It will already be cold so the ice will keep it there without diluting much. But as it does warm up, you will get gentle dilution in your punch to keep your guests from getting to “three sheets” status.
Lastly, punch is a great way to make a batch of a cocktail. One that can be loved by all. You may not please everyone, but who cares? It’s your party and you invited them over. Batching makes the job of hosting a party (something that can be stressful in its own rite) much more manageable. That should be your priority anyway. Good luck and cheers!
Now for a few easy recipes. I can’t say there is a standard ratio (although some will absolutely claim there is), but you get the idea after you make a couple. Practice on some friends. I’m sure they won’t mind.
Philadelphia Fish House Punch (adapted from Jeffrey Morgenthaler):
1 pound superfine sugar
12 lemons, peeled
16 oz Appleton V/X rum
8 oz Smith and Cross rum
12 oz Hennessy VS cognac
3 oz Briotette creme de peche (find this is you can, it’s worth it)
9 oz Laird's applejack
16 oz lemon juice, finely strained
6 pints cold water
Process – Make your oleo saccharum with your sugar and lemon peels. Let sit for a few hours or overnight. Dissolve sugar with a couple ounces of hot water. Add all other ingredients and stir to incorporate. Pro-tip: You can use a bundt pan or Tupperware container to make a big ice mold. Fill it with water and add in a few lemon slices, freeze, then turnout the next day. It may take up to 24 hours to freeze completely so give yourself time. This will keep your chilled punch cold and slowly diluting as your guests enjoy.
Bowery Punch (adapted from Alex Day of Death & Co.):
8 ounces granulated sugar
16 ounces club soda
12 ounces gin
4 ounces Italian bitter aperitivo (such as Aperol or other)
4 ounces grapefruit juice
4 ounces lemon juice
8 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Grapefruit slices for garnish
Process – First, make your oleo saccharum with the sugar and peels from 1 grapefruit and 2 lemons. Let that sit for an hour or up to overnight. Then, dissolve the sugar with a couple ounces of hot water. Add all other ingredients, adding the club soda as the very last ingredient. Give a gentle stir and toss in grapefruit slices for looks. If it’s not chilled, feel free to add a small block to chill and slowly dilute as you enjoy. This can be scaled up as you need for a larger group.
Sangria (yes, this is essentially a punch as well!):
· 1 bottle decent medium-bodied, dry, red wine (Spanish works well)
· 6 ounces brandy
· 4 ounces orange liqueur
· 4 ounces lemon juice
· 1 peach, sliced (or other seasonal fruit)
· 4 strawberries, sliced (or other seasonal fruit)
· 1 lemon, sliced
· 2 orange peels
· 4 tablespoon granulated sugar
· 12 ounces club soda or sparkling water
Process – First, make a quick oleo saccharum with the 2 orange peels and the granulated sugar. Let it sit for an hour then dissolve with a couple ounces of warm water. Add all other ingredients, except for the club soda. Give a gentle stir and toss in sliced fruit for garnish and to give off more flavor. It’s best to let this sit at least a few hours, if not overnight, to reach maximum deliciousness. Add club soda in last minute and serve.