Truffled Rum and (Fine) Champagne Punch

[Edit later that same morning: see Said's answer (a painfully obvious one) to my question in the comments section below. In this case, "fine" Champagne is not sparkling wine, but brandy.] 

At nearly 1,300 pages and weighing over six pounds, my copy of Ali-Bab’s Gastronomie Pratique is a beast. Despite the author’s name, it is not a Persian text; it’s French. Ali-Bab was the pseudonym of Henri Babinski (1855-1931), a French mining engineer who was an amateur avid cook as well. His culinary encyclopedia was first published in 1907 with a modest 314 pages, but was expanded over subsequent editions. My beastly edition is the 9th from 1981. Sometime between the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, a recipe for truffled rum and Champagne punch — punch truffé — slipped in.

The recipe is problematic and I’m giving it here partly as a curiosity. I use truffles when they are in season, but I’m not as lavish in my use of them as Babinski seems to have been. More to the point, I think the recipe is promising but doesn’t work as written; in particular, the order of adding rum and Champagne seems inverted. My French is self-taught and I’d like someone else to take a run at a translation.

The problem, as I see it, is that a mix of sugar, sparkling wine, and nutmeg won't catch fire. BUT — as anyone who's been around my house for Thanksgiving can attest — a mix of rum, sugar, and nutmeg will, when warmed, catch alight. I think the way to fix this is simply that: change the position of rum and Champagne, then proceed as directed.

Or am I missing something? Here’s the original followed by my translation. Anyone — francophiles, French bartenders, punch enthusiasts — want to have a go at it? [See comments section]

Punch truffé (Babinski)

Pour six à huit personnes, prenez:  

350 grammes de fine champagne,
350 grammes de vieux rhum,
250 grammes de sucre,
120 grammes de vin de Malaga,
1 belle trufle noire du Périgord,
1 citron,
¼ noix muscade. 

Mettez dans un bol à punch la fine champagne, la muscade et le sucre, faites flamber, mélangez bien. Lorsque le sucre sera dissous, ajoutez le rhum et le jus du citron ; activez la flamme. En meme temps, faites cuire la truffe dans le malaga, retirez-la, puis ajoutez le malaga au melange rhum et fine champagne.

Coupez la truffe en tranches minces, metiez une tranche dans chaque verre de punch et servez chaud.

 And mine:

Truffled Punch (Rowley)

For six to eight people, take:

350 grams of fine champagne,
350 grams of old rum,
250 grams of sugar, 120 grams of Malaga wine,
One beautiful black Périgord truffle,
1 lemon,
¼ nutmeg.

Put the fine champagne [see comments section], nutmeg, and sugar in a punch bowl, set alight, mix well. When the sugar has dissolved, add the rum and lemon juice; activate the flame. At the same time, cook the truffle in Malaga, remove it, then add the rum mixture to the Malaga and champagne.

Cut the truffle into thin slices, put a slice in each glass punch, and serve hot.

Goes well with: 

• More about Babinski and his book. An English version of Gastronomie Pratique was printed in 1974 as The Encyclopedia of Practical Gastronomy. Peter Herzmann has several copies of this book, but doesn’t care for that one.
• Another Henri — this one Henri Charpentier — gave a recipe for Eggs, William S. Burroughs in his privately published 1945 Food and Finesse: The Bride's Bible. Here's the recipe.
• Speaking of flames and punch, San Francisco barman Martin Cate made a hell of a show at Tiki Oasis a few years back with fire and rum. The tale of the punch so big it had to be made in a koi pond is here. 

Hot Whiskey Punch for a Torn Up Old Man

My everyday speaking voice is low, quiet, and soft. Making myself heard over high-pitched squeals and laughs in packed bars means I have to talk louder and louder — almost a low yell  — in order to get my baritone voice to carry.

I don't like yelling, so I tend to avoid clubs, dance crowds, and packed venues. Sometimes, though, that's exactly where friends want to meet. I go because I adore my friends.

Over the last year or so, though, my hearing has started to change. I can still hear quiet, subtle sounds around the house or office just fine. That hasn't changed. But in those loud settings, the background noise seems to have grown into a Phil Spector-style wall of sound. The voices and music just ooze together into an unintelligible roar, a constant crescendo.

The result is that, unless I'm huddled in a conspiratorial ring, I miss big chunks of conversation. So I watch the crowd, observe the bartenders, say hello to passing friends. And, when I do follow the conversations, I yell to be heard in response. Last night, I yelled on and off for three hours. This morning, my throat feels like someone took a bottle brush to it. Raw, red, sore; hurts to swallow, hurts to draw air across it.

Time to deploy my mom's recipe for soothing sore throats. I realized earlier this year (only because I'd never really thought about it) that the sore throat/chest cold remedy my mother used to recommend was nothing more than a portion-controlled 19th century Irish whiskey punch; hot black tea, honey, lemon, whiskey. Proportions to taste. Vague memories of a clove floating in there, but it was strictly optional — as was everything but the whiskey.

We are, after all, Irish.

Goes well with:

• Poitin Fails to Induce Rowley Coma, in which I write about the hunt for homemade Irish whiskey and open with "My family is not a whiskey making family, but we are, in large measure, Irish; that is, we are a whiskey drinking family."
• I bit I wrote when everyone in the house was sick about Pei Pa Koa, a honey-loquat sore throat syrup from Hong Kong.

Plugged For Your Pleasure: The Melon-Aged Cocktail

Barrel-aged cocktails are all the rage these days in certain circles and I can attest that some of them are hands-down delicious. But consider for a moment the melon-aged cocktail. Or is it the cocktail-aged melon? Either way, it's a winner.

From the highbrow (Charentais melons splashed with port wine) to the low (tailgate watermelons spiked with whatever liquor is handy), alcohol and melons have long enjoyed cozy relations. Since by trade and inclination, I travel in both rarefied and more earthy circles, I combined them recently in the form of a simple backyard watermelon infused with fancy punch. Admittedly, the aging in this case is simply overnight, but it's enough to give the alcohol a smoother, vaguely sweeter, edge.

And not just any punch: arrack punch, a funky, rum-heavy concoction once common in the flowing bowls of previous centuries, but little seen in the last 80 years. There's no reason, however, that you couldn't spike a watermelon with a pre-made cocktail: say, 8-12 ounces for a 10-pound melon. An enormous margarita, perhaps, or if you favor tarter tastes, a massive Negroni.

Until recently, the primary ingredient for the punch I chose — Batavia arrack — was no longer available in the United States. However, thanks to importer Eric Seed at Haus Alpenz, the 100 proof Indonesian spirit made of fermented rice and molasses is once more available. Combined with Jamaican rum, lime, sugar, and tea, it's just the thing to add a lightly boozy and slightly Baroque touch to Independence Day cookouts.

Arrack Punched Watermelon

One 10-11lb watermelon
6-10 oz of arrack punch

For this preparation, cut a round hole in the top of a chilled watermelon. Why round? Because a square hole may sometimes lead to cracks spreading out from its corners. Gently remove the plug and trim away most of the red flesh from its interior. Next, remove a small amount of flesh from the melon itself: just a small amount, enough to make a small cavity to hold liquor as it seeps into the flesh.

Then slowly pour liquor into the hole. My 11-lb melon easily absorbed one cup (250ml) of punch. It may help to pour in 2 ounces at a time, wait until that is absorbed, then add more until the melon just can't take any more. You may also speed the process by gently inserting a bamboo skewer at various angles into the flash — though be careful not to puncture the rind at any point. It seems obvious, but: leaks. Replace the round plug and keep in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve.

Note that the purpose of this particular melon is not to get you staggeringly drunk, but rather to showcase complementary tastes. After all, it's less than an ounce of punch for each pound of melon. If the staggers is what you after, consider straight rum, vodka, tequila, or Confederate chloroform. Any way you slice it, you're on your own.

Confederate chloroform? Why, it's just moonshine. We get that around here, too.

Chris Hannah’s Mardi Gras Punches

For the last few years, New Orleans bartender Chris Hannah has pushed a grocery cart around the French Quarter. Has he lost his home? His faculties? Not at all. He doesn't push it year-round, but during Carnival, when such sights are commonplace. Like so many others in Quarter and along St. Charles Avenue, Hannah uses the cart to haul around a cooler sloshing with beverages on Mardi Gras day. Each year the contents change, but the last three times he’s made what’s growing into an institution, his bright orange cooler held tiki punches made with rum.

There’s been the Nui Nui, an orange and lime concoction with allspice, cinnamon, and vanilla — and rum. In 2010, Hannah made gallons of Chief Lapu Lapu, a sweet/tart punch made with passionfruit, orange, lemon, simple syrup — and rum. This past year, he handed out cups of good cheer in the form of Pago Pago punch with orange, lime, grapefruit, honey — and rum.

Can we get this guy a sponsor? Zaya, you rock out in a Nui Nui. Appleton Estate, why not contribute some bottles and throw a little cash his way to gussy up the cart? Next year, I want to see a grocery cart-sized float and the Chris Hannah Mahalo Gold Dancers.

From Jeff Berry’s Tiki+ app, here’s a more modest-sized version of the1960's era punch from Tucson's Pago Pago restaurant. Scale up if you require more.

Pago Pago Punch

1 oz orange juice
¾ oz fresh lime juice
¾ oz grapefruit juice
¾ oz honey mix*
1 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake well with plenty of crushed ice. Pour unstrained into a pilsner glass.

*Honey mix is a 1:1 mix of honey and water, more readily mixable than straight honey.

Goes well with:

• Taking a Tiki Shortcut with Simbre Sauce, our own take on the Nui Nui which we have been known to drink in such quantities that we require a pre-batched spiced syrup dubbed (around here anyway) Simbre Sauce.
• Mardi Gras with Rowley, Wayne, and Chris, a short post on bumping into Hannah and writer Wayne Curtis on Mardi Gras last year. The photo above is from that day (with Curtis in the exterminator getup).

Texas Tea, a Punch in Disguise

Texas food has been on my mind, apparently, for years. When I pulled down my accretion of Lone Star cookbooks, the stack reached to my hip. As I research something else entirely, I’m earmarking drinks recipes. Tequila, as you can imagine, looms large in the ingredients lists. Beer, too. Lots of citrus juices and occasional jolts of mezcal come into play.

It’s with no surprise that I suddenly remember my Texas cousins measuring driving distance in units of beers: “Oh, it’s about two beers east of here.” Serious? Joking? Just testing my reaction? It occurs to me that “Texas dent” may refer not just to the indentation one puts on a can of beer to mark it as one’s own, but to car and truck bodies influenced by overindulgence in barley pop.

Mary Faulk Koock’s midcentury The Texas Cookbook puts a slightly more elegant spin on Texas sips. Her method of adding water to a strong tea base is pretty close to how I make iced tea. But then notice what gets served alongside as a matter of course.

Darjeeling Tea (for 40 to 50 cups)

Save time by making a tea concentrate beforehand. Bring 1 ½ qts cold fresh water to a full rolling boil. Remove from heat and immediately add ¼ lb. loose tea. Stir to immerse leaves. Cover. Let stand 5 minutes. Strain into teapot and leave until tea time. At the table, pour about 1 oz. concentrate into each cup, and add fresh boiling water from a teakettle. Serve with a choice of lemon slices, rum, sugar, and cream.

Lemon, sugar, tea, and rum in your cup? Oh, Texas. You may call it tea, but I know punch when I see it. It’s a shame you’re 132 beers away or I’d visit more often.

Goes well with:

• Mary Faulk Koock (1965) The Texas Cookbook: From Barbecue to Banquet — an Informal View of Dining and Entertaining the Texas Way. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 
• Homesick Texan, Lisa Fain's blog about the food of Texas from her digs in New York. Ms. Fain, as you can see plainly, takes better photos than I.

Gretchen Worden’s Fish House Punch (and a Funky Manger)

My first encounter with a bowl of punch — not the frat house version slopped together from whatever alcohol is cheap and plentiful, but a more stately Philadelphia Fish House Punch — left me positively besotted.

Gretchen Worden was a friend, but she was also director of the Mütter Museum. Housed in Philadelphia’s College of Physicians, the Mütter is a museum of medical history and pathological anatomy. I’d moved to Philadelphia as a young curator with a few freshly minted anthropology degrees for the opportunity to work with that collection.

Just before Christmas 1996, Gretchen hosted a gathering at her home for friends and employees. Our holiday chit-chat was less about Santa and his elves than disease and deformities. At this party in her home were two things I‘d never encountered. The first was a little manger scene that had grown over the years to spread over most of her fireplace mantle. In addition to the traditional stable, shepherds, wise men, and whatnot, it included toys ranging from a dollhouse refrigerator and microwave to Star Wars action figures. There were plastic fly larvae (“Gift of the Maggots,” she wryly quipped out of the side of her mouth. Leaning in closer, she placed her hand on my arm and confided: “They glow in the dark.”). Joseph was holding a camcorder, R2D2 had joined the shepherds’ flock and I think — though certain memories of the evening are less reliable — that the manger itself was occupied by either Yoda or one of the brown-frocked jawas.

The other thing I’d never seen before was a big bowl of Fish House Punch, a compounded drink that dates back to Philadelphia's colonial past. I didn’t realize anyone made it anymore, but it turned out that for years Gretchen had been whipping up and aging batches of it using an 1950’s recipe. The technique isn’t what you might see in high-end bars today, but the effect is no less potent. She advised serving it very cold so that one did not have to dilute it with ice. Wicked, wicked woman.

As an experienced homebrewer of beers and ales, the tiny punch cups (little more than demitasses, really) that accompanied the bowl seemed, well, stingy. Used to quaffing homemade beverages in great quantity, that’s exactly what I did. Frequent refilling required us to gather around the bowl. As a result, the conversation flowed like punch.

I do not recall how I got home.

I do not recall whether any Fish House Punch was left.

I do not recall whether I dreamed of baby Yoda or glow-in-the-dark Yule maggots.

I do not recall, most pointedly, wanting another drink for several days.

Gretchen’s recipe is not a wholly authentic recreation of 18th Century Fish House Punch, but it is sly and potent. The peach brandy I used to make it was sheer bootleg — and really good — but drinks writer David Wondrich has suggested elsewhere that a 3:1 blend of bonded applejack to “good, imported peach liqueur” might work as a substitute. You may try commercial examples from Peach Street Distillers or Kuchan Cellars.

From my 2007 book Moonshine!, here’s

Gretchen Worden’s Fish House Punch

1 quart lemon juice (about 4 dozen lemons, squeezed)
1 ½ lb sugar
1 pint curacao, tangerine brandy or orange flavored liquor
1 pint dark rum
1 pint Benedictine
1 quart peach brandy
1 gallon bourbon
1 pint strong cold tea.

In Gretchen’s precise words, “Put the above gut-rot in a three-gallon jug and shake the hell out of it. Place the jug in a cool place and shake it once a day for at least three weeks; two months is better. Do not cork it tightly and keep it cool or chilled or else the lemon juice will cause the whole thing to go off. Serve chilled, not over ice.”

I might add: serve it in small cups.

Egyptian Punch, An Untried Recipe

The milk punch family is divided into two main braches: whole and strained. The sort of milk punch you’re likely to encounter in New Orleans is what I call a whole-milk punch. Such a punch might be made with cream or milk, but the result is creamy, boozy, and takes on the color of the dairy that goes into it. Egg nog, brandy milk punch, bourbon milk punch, or even LSU Tiger’s milk punch are fair examples. In rare cases they are aged, but generally are served soon after mixing the ingredients.

The other sort is a strained milk punch. These have fallen from fashion and you’re less likely to encounter one. These are generally aged and mixed with high-acid citrus (such as lemon) that curdle the milk. They are then strained through filters such as flannel, cheesecloth, or paper. Fernand Point’s Liqueur du Grapillon is one example. Old American recipes for English or Italian lemonade call for the same technique: Mix sugar, lemon, milk, and sometimes spirits, let it stand to curdle, then strain and age the liquid. When it’s ready to drink, the resulting beverage is clear — though possibly colored by the spirits or other ingredients such as hibiscus.

Thumbing through the 1915 Pan-Pacific Cookbook, I came across a recipe for such a strained milk punch. I haven’t tried it yet, but the recipe is certainly older than 1915 and not particularly Egyptian. For the record, here’s

Egyptian Punch

Pare the thin rinds of eighteen lemons into a stone jar and cover with five pints each of Jamaica rum and whiskey; cover and let stand for thirty hours; add the lemon juice, three pounds of loaf sugar, two grated nutmegs, four quarts of water and, last, two quarts of boiling milk. Let it stand for half an hour, then mix well and strain — first, through a flannel bag and then through filter paper. Pout into bottles and cork tightly. The punch will be of light amber color and very clear. It improves with age.

Goes well with:

• Erik Ellestad has written about about strained milk punches at Underhill Lounge. He's not the first to write about Rum Hibiscus Milk Punch, but I do like his photos.
• Fernand Point’s Liqueur du Grapillon
• Bourbon House in New Orleans once served cantaloupe bourbon milk punch. It's not an everyday offering, but check in during warm weather and you might just find it churning away in the freezer behind the bar. 
• A brochure from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition — the Pan-Pacific in the cookbook's title — held in San Francisco (from the Museum of the City of San Francisco).

Martin Cate Blows the Lid (Almost) off Tiki Oasis

Whatever you do, do it with all your might.

~ PT Barnum (1880)

The Art of Money Getting

PT Barnum, Robert Tilton, Huey Long — showmen all, masters of swaying their audiences. To their ranks, consider adding San Francisco bar man Martin Cate.

At the recent Tiki Oasis in San Diego, Cate presented The Persuasive Power of Punch, a thumbnail history of the origins of alcoholic punch. What’s he know about punch? Plenty. As owner of the San Francisco rum bar Smuggler’s Cove, Cate presides over a drinks menu that spans centuries, going back far earlier than the mid-century tiki drinks for which he is widely known. But from Planters’ Punch to the Zombie, tiki has its share of potent multi-ingredient drinks that fall squarely in the punch tradition.

The room itself in the Crowne Plaza Hotel was divided into five main sections, all arranged in a rough circle around a tarp-covered central table. Now, tiki crowds skew slightly older, whiter, straighter, and more coupled than I’m used to in drinkin’ buddies, but a more friendly crowd you couldn’t ask for. The room quickly filled with Hawaiian shirts, tropical dresses, and a handful of fezzes. There were vintage cat’s eye glasses, beehive hair, coconut purses, and pineapple bracelets. And the attendees were positively gleeful.

The crowd filed in, grabbed cups of welcoming punch, and started heading for spots at the surrounding tables, each of which was outfitted with a small cup covered in plastic wrap. Each section’s cups contained different liquids. As I tried to make out what they were, a volunteer pointed me to a seat. “If you sit where I tell you,” she sighed, “this would all go a lot faster.”

So I did. And Martin launched into his history of punch — its origins in India and introduction to Europe through the British East India Company. He discussed how the very name punch is said to derive from the Hindustani word panch, meaning “five” (for the five ingredients common in 17th century punches), its place in pre-industrial England and America, and how its popularity declined over the years.

But those cat’s eye glasses, those fezzes, and those clusters of beehives kept turning back to the tarp in the center of the room. Fingers stealthily moved toward the cups, worrying loose edges of plastic wrap. Noses went into the cups as the audience tried to suss out their contents. Mine was clearly strong black tea. Cate, seemingly oblivious, began using a punch ladle as a pointer for his slides. It only made the audience more antsy.

He shared some tips for finding recipes and serving punches out of various vessels from bowls to coolers. “So…anyway,” he wrapped up, “that’s it. Thanks for coming. I hope you guys had a good time.” Scattered light applause began to ripple through the audience while shouts of “No, no!” arose in other parts. “What?” he asked. “Did I forget something?” After more teasing, he acknowledged there might be one more thing to do.

“I am here” Hands begin drumming the tables.
“To present to you” The drumming gets faster, harder, while yelps and cheers leap forth.
“The single most powerful weapon ever crafted.” The cheers get even louder.
“Behold!” The tarp is drawn back in one dramatic reveal.
“The world’s. Most. Powerful. Volcano bowl!” The crowd goes absolutely apeshit.

There, on the table, is an enormous volcano bowl fashioned from a Home Depot koi pond. Men and women — with, one presumes, respectable day jobs — are on their feet, snapping pictures, recording video, looks of delirious joy on their faces. Is this a talk about punches or a dustbowl tent revival? The glory and the power of rum has struck these poor souls and I’ll be damned if some of them aren’t speaking in tongues. Hawaiian, if I’m not mistaken.

Cate asks each section to come forth and contribute its ingredient from the plastic cups. In goes cup after cup of fresh lime juice. “Come up here and feed it. Feeeeed it.” The bowl’s capacity is said to be 40 gallons. The sweetness of a rich Demerara sugar goes in. “Yes, yes, give it more … Excellent.” Vanilla and cinnamon Trader Tiki syrups. After that, tea, tea, and more tea. The crowd chants “Rum! Rum! Rum! Rum!” They get their wish: in goes a healthy dose of two rums. Our MC uses first a giant whisk, then an electric immersion blender to mix the ingredients. Red lights come on at the bottom of the bowl and the bubbler kicks in.

“This needs something,” Cate notes. “Maybe it’s fire.” 

And with that, this modern-day Barnum blew the roof off Tiki Oasis. Well, not literally. But the fire marshal might’ve gotten a little freaked as the audience screamed its approval. A large crouton, soaked in 160-proof lemon extract is set in place above the bubbling liquid, lit, and then blown into a huge fireball.

Audience pandemonium.

Almost in a frenzy, Cate passes around long straws, tells the crowd to put two together to make even longer straws. Some clatter to the floor in a maelstrom of tiki madness. From each section, a contingent springs forth to sample with double-long long straws. My photographer — it’s his first Tiki Oasis — looks at me in amazement. “These are grown-ass adults,” he marvels “acting like they’re 21 years old.”

And that’s maybe part of the magic of Tiki Oasis and tiki crowds in general. Grown-ass adults sometimes need to act like kids. If that entails drinking and setting things on fire, then so be it. I had a blast (a contained one) and will be back next year.

Tiki Oasis 10th Anniversary Punch

1 oz Rhum JM VSOP
1 oz Zaya rum
1 oz strong Darjeeling tea
1 oz fresh lime juice
.25 oz Demerara simple syrup (optional/to taste)
.5 oz Trader Tiki Cinnamon Syrup (see below)
.5 oz Trader Tiki Vanilla Syrup (see below)

For a single serving, mix together with ice. For a crowd, just multiply each ingredient, ice it, and serve it forth.

Goes well with:

• A big block of ice. Note that punch gets less watered down if all the mixed ingredients are chilled and served on a single block of ice.
• Trader Tiki syrups are fantastic vehicles for adding exotic spices and flavorings to tropical cocktails. Check them out here.
• Smuggler's Cove, Martin Cate's bar in San Francisco.
• Tiki Oasis, the annual San Diego tiki gathering. I'm already planning to hit up Tiki Oasis next year. If you go, get tickets early: they sell out fast. 

Photos © 2010 by Douglas Dalay. 

MxMo XL: Bai Nai Punch

In Thai, bai nai means "Where are you going?" For my friends Barry and Rebecca, who have spent some time in Thailand and just married last month, the common greeting seemed a fitting name for a drink to mark their wedding day.

Since this month’s Mixology Monday's theme is ginger, it’s doubly fitting. More than that, maybe: Matt "Rumdood" Robold is hosting MxMo XL: Ginger this month, so it'll be worth checking in later in the week to see what cocktail recipes have been delivered to his door. The Bai Nai punch uses ginger syrup as well as falernum, a Barbadian syrups flavored with cloves, lime, and other ingredients, including ginger.

The drink is particularly suited to large gatherings such as weddings, pool parties, beach outings, or backyard cookouts. The recipe for the Bai Nai—based on Dale DeGroff’s Perfect Passion from his 2009 book The Essential Cocktail—yeilds a single serving. The syrup recipes that go into it, though, have large yields because they are particularly versatile. While I like DeGroff’s original recipe with its muddled ginger, strawberries, and lychees, it would have been a monster hassle to make it one drink at a time for 180 guests. Instead, I scaled it, made some substitutions, rejiggered the measurements…and added an ingredient.

Lychees provide an exotic but elusively familiar element—the taste is something like table grapes, but clearly not just that, and the aroma is unmistakable (once you know what it is). To give the recipe an additional lychee flavor and aroma boost, I added a small amount of Soho, a lychee liqueur imported by Pernod Ricard. Use it with a light touch—it's tasty, but it doesn’t take much to be too much.

Bai Nai Punch

1.5 oz vodka or 40-45% abv neutral spirits
1 oz. strawberry/lychee syrup (see below)
.75 oz lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
.5 oz falernum
.25 oz ginger syrup (see below)
.25 oz Soho Lychee liqueur

Shake with ice. Strain into stemmed cocktail glass. Garnish with a paper umbrella anchored with an orange slice.

The Syrups

Ginger Syrup
4 oz fresh ginger root, peeled, and cut into small dice
24 oz water
.5 oz fresh lime juice
1 tsp lime zest
1.5 c Demerara sugar

Bring the water almost to a boil in a pan. Add ½ cup to a blender with the ginger. Process briefly to shred the ginger. Rinse out the blender with the remaining hot water, then transfer the ginger mixture back to the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and add the remaining ingredients. Leave at a bare simmer for an hour (do not boil). Let cool and strain.

Yield: about 24 ounces

Strawberry/lychee syrup
6 pints fresh strawberries
6 12-oz cans of lychees
2.5 quarts simple syrup (1:1 sugar and water)
The light syrup from two lychee cans

Wash and hull the berries. Add them with the lychees to a large plastic container. Add half the simple syrup and roughly chop with an immersion blender. Add the remaining syrups, cover, and let sit overnight in the refrigerator. Strain.

Yield: about 90 ounces

.

Gift of the Negi

Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard,
Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine;
Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard,
Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and in fine
Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies, and custard:
And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine,
With mead, and ale, and cider of our own;
For porter, punch, and negus were not known.

John Hookham Frere (1817)
Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers

~ ~ ~

In 1817 when Frere gushed on about a Christmas feast set before King Arthur in his mock-heroic Prospectus and Specimen, porter, punch, and negus were all the rage among his English audience. Two hundred years on, you have your pick of porters at any well-stocked bottle shop while punch—whether milk, planter’s, or Hawaiian—is hardly in danger of extinction.

The preparation of negus, however, though not wholly unknown to savvy imbibers, has fallen into neglect. Like eggnog, the port wine-based tot is a seasonal affair, creeping out of its obscurity once the veil of winter has descended, letting us know that Christmas is on us.

With the nation vexed by inclement weather and even sunny San Diego beset with cold nights and biting showers, when bamboo freighted with rain arcs nearly to the ground, what’s called for is liquor. And why not a mug of hot wine to send warming tendrils of boozy nutmeg goodness throughout the body? A mug? Make a Thermos full if you’re feeling punchy.

Through my early drinking years, port was linked in my mind inextricably to the English who, especially in the works of Dickens, seemed to guzzle the Portuguese fortified wine with alarming frequency. As far as I was concerned, they could keep it. Too sweet, too strong, it called to mind overpriced Mad Dog.

I’ve since learned two things. First, I had been sampling crap port—less porto than wino. Second, it turns out that, just as sweet tea explains itself best in the complementary presence of vinegar-based barbecue sauces, port shines in the company of other things—England’s justly famed Stilton cheese, for instance, or mellow cigars. As the British lieutenant-colonel Francis Negus* (d. 1732) discovered, port marries handsomely with citrus and spices. For three hundred years, the drink bearing his name has been almost an exclusively British concern. According to Oxford University Press’s 1894 The Dictionary of National Biography,

It is related that on one occasion, when the bottle was passing rather more rapidly than good fellowship seemed to warrant over a hot political discussion, in which a number of prominent whigs and tories were taking part, Negus averted a fracas by recommending the dilution of the wine with hot water and sugar. Attention was diverted from the point at issue to a discussion of the merits of wine and water, which ended in the compound being nicknamed ' negus.'

There are other origin stories, but all surround this same Francis Negus. A majority of 19th-century texts, while allowing for variants, go on to concur that a proper negus calls for five ingredients;

• A large measure of port wine
• Lemon
• Sugar
• Boiling water
• Nutmeg

Lemon is occasionally supplemented with orange and nutmeg with cinnamon (or more exotic ambergris). Unlike glögg, Glühwein, or mulled wine—revitalizing hot nips from northern climes—negus is made hot by the addition of boiling water rather than heating the wine itself. Wouldn’t want to lose all that Brumalian ethanol to the open air, after all.

So there you have it—wine, lemon, and sugar mixed together, heated with the addition of boiling water, and dusted with nutmeg. As ancient a yuletide beverage as you’re likely to find—And its health benefits are not to be denied: in The Gentleman's Magazine (1822), John Sinclair recommended negus on sea voyages to lessen "the puking."

I offer you two personal negi here, and no puking: one in the style of Mrs. Isabella Beeton (who presented a weaker negus intended for drinking “at children’s parties”—way to go, Mrs. B.) and another after M.E. Steedman, writing for more manly constitutions. Though Beeton’s recipe is the more widely disseminated, Steedman’s is the better. Both are sweet by modern tastes, so feel free to ease your foot off the sugar pedal. Their original recipes and proportions follow.

Negus in the Style of Mrs. Beeton
for a Brace of Victorian Children
4 oz. port (Sandeman Founder’s Reserve)
a wide swath of lemon peel (no pith)
½ oz. lemon juice
1 oz. sugar (demerara if you’ve got it, white if not)
8 oz. boiling water (plus extra for heating the mug)
fresh nutmeg to taste*

Pre-heat a sixteen-ounce ceramic mug or other container by filling it with boiling water. Toss the water once the mug is warm to the touch. Add the lemon peel, lemon juice, and sugar and muddle together. Add the port, grate in a dusting of nutmeg, and top off with boiling water. Cover or close until slightly cooled, then dish out into separate smaller mugs.

Yield: 12 oz

Negus in the Style of Steedman
4 oz. port (Sandeman Ten Year Tawny)
a wide swath of lemon peel (no pith)
½ oz. sugar (demerara if you’ve got it, white if not)
4 oz. boiling water (plus extra for heating the mug)
fresh nutmeg to taste*
1-3 drops vanilla extract, optional
(alternately, one or two of essence of ambergris, if you’re feeling flush)

Yield: 8 oz

Pre-heat a ten-ounce ceramic mug by filling it with boiling water. Toss the water once the mug is warm to the touch. Add the lemon peel and sugar and muddle together with a splash of port if necessary. Add the remaining port, grate in a dusting of nutmeg, and top off with boiling water. If using the vanilla or ambergris, now’s the time to add it. Give it a stir and drink when it’s cool enough to down.

*Notes
Nutmeg: The prodigious amounts of nutmeg called for in older recipes don’t necessarily indicate a fanaticism for the taste (“Oh, them old-timey cooks spiced up everything really high ‘cause the meat was rotten.”). Consider another reason—We’re accustomed to fairly high turnover in spices, but in 1723, 1891, and even 1958, a nutmeg could be years old by the time it reached our ancestors. Quite simply, much of the aromatic oils had dissipated by the time they reached the kitchen or bar, so it was necessary to oomph up the volume to wrest much taste from old dry spice. Feel free to de-oomph it to your own preferences now that we have access to less vintage provisions.

Pronunciation: Everyone familiar with it is agreed that the port wine-based drink is pronounced nay-gus. Everyone except William Makepeace Thackeray who informs us, by way of Edwin Hewett and W.F. Axton in Convivial Dickens (1983), that it’s nee-gus. Nay-gus seems more likely, but given the British penchant for surprising pronunciations (even of my surname among blood relatives in those parts), I wouldn’t rule it out at this juncture.


Original Recipes

Isabella Beeton (1861) Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

To Make Negus

1835. To every pint of port wine allow one quart of boiling water, ¼ pound of sugar, one lemon, grated nutmeg to taste.

Mode. – As this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose, a new fruity wine answering very well for it. Put the wine into a jug, rub some lumps of sugar (equal to ¼ lb.) on the lemon-rind until all the yellow part of the skin is absorbed, then squeeze the juice, and strain it. Add the sugar in the lemon-juice to the port wine, with the grated nutmeg; pour over it the boiling water, cover the jug, and, when the beverage has cooled little, it will be fit to use. Negus may also be made of sherry, or any other sweet white wine, but it is more usually made of port than of any other beverage.

Sufficient. – Allow one pint of wine, with the other ingredients in proportion, for a party of nine or 10 children.

19th Century bon vivant Jerry Thomas—as near to a patron saint of cocktails as Americans come—steals his negus recipe verbatim from Beeton’s Book of Household Management (though, to be fair, so did dozens of writers: recipe plagiarism is an old and well-honed craft and poor Mrs. Beeton has been shamelessly plundered; she may, in fact, have done some negus plundering herself).

William “The Only William” Schmidt, however, gives a few takes on it in his 1891 bartending guide The Flowing Bowl, one with port and another with claret (the English term for red Bordeaux wines):

394. Negus.

This beverage is of English origin, and there very highly estimated; it derives its name from its inventor, the English Colonel Negus.

Put the rind of half a lemon or orange in a tureen, add eight ounces of sugar, one pint of port wine, the fourth part a small nutmeg–grated; infuse this for an hour; strain; add one quart of boiling water, and the drink is ready for use.

395. Another.

In other countries they are used to take lighter wines. The recipe follows: put two bottles of claret, two sticks cinnamon, six cloves, a little pulverized cardamom, a little grated nutmeg, and a half a pound of sugar, one which you have previously rubbed the rind of a lemon, on a slow fire; cover well, and heat to the boiling-point; strain through a hair-sieve; add one pint of boiling water, and the juice of one and a half lemons, and serve in strong glasses, that are first warmed. [all sic]

M.E. Steedman (n.d. c 1890’s) Home-made Beverages and American Drinks gives us a more fortified version:

Negus
Rub 3 oz. of loaf sugar on to the rind of a lemon, pound it, and add to it a pint of port, a quarter of a small nutmeg grated, a pint of boiling water, and if liked one or two drops of essence of ambergris or rather more of vanilla. Serve hot.

Jerry Thomas also offers bubbly version:

Soda Negus
A most refreshing and elegant beverage, particularly for those who do not take punch or grog after supper, is thus made:

Put half a pint of port wine, with four lumps of sugar, three cloves, and enough grated nutmeg to cover a shilling, into a saucepan; warm it well, but did not suffer it to boil; pour it into a bowl or jug, and upon the warm wine decant a bottle of soda water. You will have an effervescent and delicious negus by this means.

George IV’s Negus

Dr. Samuel Johnson's dictum regarding port comes to mind: “Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.” And if one commingles port and brandy? Surely such a drinker must aspire to majestic heights of masculinity. From the premier issue of the The Portfolio of Entertaining & Instructive Varieties in History, Literature, Fine Arts, Etc. (1829) comes this blurb about a massive negus made for the Hanoverian King George IV.

HIS MAJESTY'S NEW WINE COOLER

ON Monday last the magnificent wine cooler manufactured for his Majesty by Messrs Rundell and Bridge, was, with his Majesty's approbation, filled with port negus at the manufactory in Dean-street that the workmen employed in its construction might toast his Majesty's health on the completion of their work.

This splendid vase weighs 6950 ounces, and contains 38 gallons. There were used in making the negus sixteen gallons of old port, one gallon of brandy, eight dozen lemons six dozen nutmegs, and 20 lbs of loaf sugar.

What's interesting to me about this one is the addition of the brandy—and the lack of any mention of boiling water. Perhaps it merely assumed, given the not quite double capacity of the vessel compared with the volume of the listed ingredients, but knowing a fair number of workmen myself—and the seeming absence of the king during the toasting—I wouldn't be shocked if it had been omitted entirely. Tuesday last might've been a painful day for those toasters...

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The Academy of Ancient Beverages
Negus isn’t the only venerable Christmas drink around. Short of milking a cow right into the syllabub bowl, here are some others to get your yuletide motor turning...

• Blair “TikiTrader” Reynolds cranks out a bowl of wassail over the The Mixolosem.
• Paul Clarke at The Cocktail Chronicles sets fires to a bowl of booze for a Christmas Rum Punch.
  
• The Boston chapter of LUPEC (Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails) pull out the stops with a boozy bowl, hot toddies, and sangaree. I have got to make it back to Boston…
• And, finally, there’s that lovely aged eggnog over at Chow I keep intending to make

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Santa Maria Tri-tip

Donner? Party of 12?

Your table is ready.

As the Smiths song has it, meat is murder. According to a recent verdict in a British court case from Yorkshire, it is apparently delicious, cannibalistic murder. It seems that a former Mr. Gay UK had been convicted on charges of murder, and of cooking and eating at least a portion of another man. One can't be too careful about those offers to come for dinner.

I do my part to keep human flesh consumption to a minimum. Even so, we don’t eat as much meat as I did growing up in Kansas City—where any meal without a bit of flesh seemed like we got stiffed—but we are far from vegan.

Since moving to California, one of the area’s dishes I’ve come to appreciate is Santa Maria barbecue. This variety from the central coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco uses tri-tip, a vaguely triangular piece of beef cut of beef that is infrequently found in the US beyond the state's borders. Cooked Santa Maria style, tri-tip is bathed in a marinade of salt, pepper, garlic, and occasionally other spices, and then slowly grilled over red oak.

Now, because it’s grilled and not smoked slowly for hours, it’s not barbecue as we understand it when we eat in places such as Kansas City, Memphis, Texas, or nearly anywhere in the Carolinas. California is far enough away from those other places, though, that those living there shouldn’t get their backs up about it.

The seasoning I use when grilling tri-tips is your standard Santa Maria spice mixture, except that because lemon trees are so common here, I include dried, powdered lemon peel that I make myself once a year when concocting my annual batch of fish house punch (that calls for a quart of fresh, strained lemon juice).

If you don’t have tri-tip, you’re not out of luck. It turns out that the seasoning works very well with flank steaks, tenderloins, and other beef cuts as well as pork cuts you would normally grill.

As for manflesh? I shall leave that and its preparation to your discretion. As with moonshine and home-distilled liquor, it is prudent to obey local laws.

Santa Maria Tri-tip

For this, I used a mild canola oil because an assertive olive oil taste would throw off the flavors of some great beef, but do as you will. The beef itself should not come very fatty, but trim off any huge hunks of fat, leaving enough to help the marinade along as it slowly cooks over the coals.

1 small handful of garlic, peeled
½ cup canola oil
2 Tbl coarse sea salt
1 Tbl whole black peppercorns
2 tsp powdered dry lemon peel
3.5 lbs tri-tip, trimmed of outrageously excess fat

Put the ingredients (except the beef) in a food processor or blender and blend until the mixture is emulsified and fairly smooth. It is not necessary to make a completely smooth and homogenous mixture. Smear the mixture all over the tri-tip. Place the meat in a zip lock bag or a nonreactive bowl and let marinate in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.

About an hour before grilling, let the meat come to room temperature.

Sear the fatty side over direct heat, then the other side, about 3-4 minutes per side.

Cook over indirect heat about 20-25 minutes (it’s to an internal temperature of 120-25 Fahrenheit). Let the tri-tip rest 10 minutes and slice thinly against the grain.

Note that the traditional accompaniment to this is a small dish of the small ruddy pinquito beans one finds up the coast. I'm lucky since I can get them at our local farmers market. But they can be tricky to find outside California. As you can see in the photograph here, sometimes I just throw some vegetables on the grill for the last several minutes of cooking.

Goes well with:

• Rancho Gordo's pinquito beans. Check out their website and if you like the look of these little buggers, order a few pounds. They also sell Christmas lima beans, vaqueros, borlottis, red nightfalls, and other tricky-to-find beans.
• Peter Greenaway's 1990 film, The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover in which Michael Gambon's despicable Albert Spica gets a mouthful.
• Ravenous (1999) starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, and the inestimable Jeffery Jones. A tale of meat in California.

Rowley’s Lemon Punsch Pie

I live in California where the mixers grow on trees. In some places, the lanes are so lousy with oranges or lemons that they truly are gutter trash. I’m still fascinated by it all.

When I had a sample of Erik Ellestad’s lemon-infused Swedish punsch at Tales of the Cocktail during the panel “Making Your Own Cocktail Ingredients” I realized I wanted to play around with the liqueur. So I tweaked one of his recipes to come up with a one-liter batch and am very pleased with it.

What to call this thing…I like “lemon punsch pie” but then “punch drunk pie” works or “punsch debris pie” or even “enhooched pie” since my take on an old Shaker recipe definitely carries a strong smell of delicious Swedish punsch from the enhooched lemons slices used to flavor it.

Call it what you want, this is a tasty pie—if prepared with the thinnest-sliced lemons. Honest, if your slices are thicker than, say, your knife blade, they’re too thick and will never be tender enough for the pie, no matter how low and slowly you bake it. Use a mandoline or a Benriner if you've got one.

Go on and gild the lily with a fat dollop of whipped cream, flavored with vanilla extract and a knifepoint of salt (which in small enough doses doesn’t taste of salt but enhances the creaminess of the cream. Seriously. Try it.).

Rowley’s Lemon Punsch Pie

Start by using the sliced lemons from a recipe of Swedish punsch (such as Erik's or mine). If you use either recipe, you’ll have too many slices, so discard about one-third of the volume.

• 9 oz/250g thinly sliced punsch lemons, seeded
• 2 cups/14.5 oz/420g granulated sugar
• 1 Tbl Swedish punsch (in addition to whatever clings to the lemons)
• A pinch of salt
• 4 eggs, beaten
• Egg white, beaten (to seal the edges and brush the top)
• Two 10” pie crusts, uncooked*

In a nonreactive container, mix the sugar, lemon slices, and additional tablespoon of punsch. Let rest overnight until a thick, sludgy syrup forms (not all the sugar will dissolve).

The next day, mix together the lemon slice sludge with the four beaten eggs and salt until the sugar and eggs are combined. The sugar still won’t all dissolve. If you were worried about such things, you wouldn’t be making this pie, so hush.

Preheat your oven to 450°F/230°C.

Lay a pie crust in a 10” pan add the filling. Wet the edges of the crust with the egg white wash. Place the other 10” crust on top, pressing to seal the edges. Trim the excess dough. Lightly brush the egg while across the top and, using a sharp knife, puncture the top crust only with a dozen or so small slits to let steam escape.

Cook the pie for 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 375°F/190°C and cook another 30 minutes or so until the top is golden brown and the custard is lightly set.

Cool on a wire rack and serve with that fat dollop of cream. Go on, you know you want to.

*Usually I make my own pie crusts, but it's been so frackin' hot I wanted to be in the kitchen as little a possible and cheated by using a box of Trader Joe's frozen crusts. Eh. They're ok. You'll notice that I'm no photographer. I'll make it properly when it cools off. Lord knows I'll run out of the punsch soon enough.


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Swedish Punsch (and Lemon Punsch Pie)

In which Rowley steals a recipe and lays the groundwork for updating an old Shaker classic dessert

(which was posted later that week).

I was skeptical of the boozy tea-and-cardamom flavored liqueur called Swedish punsch (or, punch), mostly because I’m leery of Scandinavian culinary delights such as lutefisk, reindeer, and whale. I shouldn’t have worried. There is aquavit, after all, and a robust home distilling tradition in those frosty northern climes. Plus, I like tea; cardamom can be delicious; and punch usually goes down without a fight.

Final realization? I should have made this long ago.

Given the cardamom and lemon, two flavors that find their way into cookies, pies, and cakes, the recipe also got me thinking about how the spent lemons (used to flavor the spirits) could be incorporated into baking instead of getting pitched once they'd given up their flavor to the punsch.

Now, you could drink this liqueur neat, chilled, but there’s a tradition of using it as a cocktail ingredient that’s a better route. First thing to do (that is, if you can’t find a bottle of the actual stuff) is to score a bottle of Batavia Arrack von Oosten, a Javanese rice-and-sugar cane spirit that is once again available in the US through Haus Alpenz. That will give a noticeable funky character to the final product. Which is good.













For a recipe using the Arrack—please, the Indonesian stuff, not the eastern Mediterranean anise liqueurs—I turned to Erik Ellestad’s Underhill Lounge. Erik’s recipe makes about three liters; a little much for something I’d never tried to make before, so I scaled the recipe to make one liter.

If I had known how good it would be, how fantastic in mixed drinks, I would have gone for the full three-liter batch.

Next time.

Swedish Punsch (one liter yield)

Spirit Base

• 17 oz/500ml El Dorado 5 Year demarara rum
• 8.5 oz/250ml Batavia Arrack van Oosten
• 3 lemons, sliced thinly and seeded

Put the lemon slices, along with any accumulated juice, into a half-gallon non-reactive container with a sealable lid (e.g., a big ol’ Mason or le Parfait preserving jar). Let macerate six hours. Don’t leave it all day or overnight; you don’t want to extract too much of the bitterness from the lemon. It is important to slice the lemons as thinly as possible, say no thicker than a credit card (note that I don't follow my advice in the picture; the pie would've been much more tender had I done so).

Meanwhile, prepare the tea syrup (below) and allow it to cool to room temperature. After six hours, pour the arrack/rum infusion off the lemon slices (don’t squeeze them). Set the enhooched lemon slices aside (you may want to use them to make the lemon punsch pie. If not, pitch 'em, compost 'em, or slop the hogs with them).

Pour the flavored rum mix through a funnel into the one-liter bottle containing the tea syrup. Shake gently to mix and set aside at least one day to mellow.

Tea Syrup

• 8.5 oz/250ml boiling water
• 1 Tbl/6 grams orange pekoe tea
• 2 cardamom pods, crushed
• 1 1/3 cups/280g demarara sugar

Place the dry loose tea and crushed cardamom pods in French press. Heat a small pot of water to the boil, then measure 250ml. Pour this hot water over the tea and cardamom and steep for six minutes.

While tea is steeping, pour sugar through a funnel into a one-liter bottle.

After six minutes, strain the tea (through a coffee filter or a dampened paper towel or cheesecloth if necessary) into the bottle containing the sugar. Seal the bottle and shake the holy living bejesus out of it until the sugar dissolves completely.

To get you started on some tasty drinks, here’s a trio of recipes that use punsch. Try them all and for more recipes, check out cocktaildb.com.

Boomerang
3/4 oz rye (Sazerac)
3/4 oz Swedish punsch
3/4 oz dry vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash fresh lemon juice

Stir in mixing glass with ice & strain.

Doctor Cocktail
2 oz Jamaica rum
1 oz Swedish punsch
1 oz fresh lime juice

Shake in iced cocktail shaker & strain.

~ from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails

100% Cocktail
2 oz Swedish punsch
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz fresh lemon juice
One drop of Angostura bitters (for garnish)

Shake punsch and juices with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a single drop of bitters.

~ from Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz’s The Art of the Bar: Cocktail’s Inspired by the Classics

And that pie recipe that uses the spent lemons from the arrack/rum infusion? Hold yer horses. It's coming. [edit: now it's posted]

Wake Up, It's Time for a Brandy Milk Punch

[Spent a week recently back in one of my favorite cities in the world. Here’s the first of occasional post-New Orleans notes.]

In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans remains a broken, dysfunctional city—but, then, it was always dysfunctional and I mean that with a great deal of affection: it's a sultry, nearly tropical, city unlike any other in the nation, the social fabric heaving with open secrets and local scandals, an entrenched food culture that has lent any but the most incurious citizens a sophisticated and educated taste in bills of fare, and a climate that, for several months out of the year, practically demands alcohol at nearly any hour of the day just to escape hot air so freighted with water that might burst into rain if a door so much as slams shut.

Perfect weather for rum, bourbon, and brandy. Yes, even with breakfast, a habit in which I almost never indulge anywhere but there.

Now the city is growing, well, less broken, if not actually fixed. Houses are still abandoned, neighborhoods gone, shipping containers parked almost permanently on some streets packed with the contents of houses as yet unrepaired, and some restaurants may not stay open as late, or as many days, as they used to. But construction crews are everywhere; houses being re-sided, new roofs going up, sidewalks and driveways being relaid. The food is as good as it ever was. No, it ain’t back to business as usual. But it is coming back.

I’ve been coming to New Orleans for nearly twenty years. And I’ll keep coming back, for my friendships there are as thick as the air.

On a morning like today’s, when I’m still pulling kittens out of my mouth but have yet to get to the farmers’ market to lay in supplies for the family dinner tonight, a New Orleans breakfast drink is called for. I did say “almost” never for breakfast…

Ladies and gentlemen, Dammen und Herren, madames et monsieurs, I give you:

The Brandy Milk Punch

2 oz brandy
1 ounce simple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (genuine, high-proof stuff)
1 1/2 ounces milk
ice
Freshly grated or shaved nutmeg* for garnish

Pour brandy, simple syrup, vanilla, and milk in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass and fill with ice. Strain mixture into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with nutmeg and serve immediately.

* I shave my nutmegs with an old microplane that bigger-than-life Shirley Corriher gave me years before anyone else outside woodworking knew what they were. It gives a nice, almost filigree, texture that otherwise only the finest-grain graters would yield.

Goes well with:

• Chris McMillian, plying his trade these days at the New Orleans restaurant MiLa, made a series of great videos for nola.com. In this video, he demonstrates a BMP. The man's a pleasure to watch in action.
• My buddy Pableaux Johnson kicked in a recipe for LSU Tiger's [sic] milk punch for a Times-Picayune piece a while back. For when just one won't do, here's a bourbon-based version that, with ice, yields about a gallon. Hmmm...maybe that's not a sic, after all. Maybe it's just one hammered tiger...In any event, here's his slightly different take on his own blog, Bayoudog.com.

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From the Archives: Pony Punch

Still managing clumsily with a mangled hand, so I decided to pull up a recipe from the archives I'd already transcribed. From an undated British drinks book (c. 1900), here's

Pony Punch
(not to be mistaken for a Donkey Punch)

Rub 4 lumps of sugar on the rind of a large lemon, and dissolve them in one and half gills of strong green tea, add the strained juice of three lemons, 8 oz. sugar dissolved in a gill of water, a bottle of Chablis, a gill each of rum and brandy, a wineglass full of arrack or sherry, and grated nutmeg and powdered cinnamon to taste. Mix well, strain, heat the punch over the fire (being careful that it does not boil) and serve at once.

~ Home-Made Beverages and American Drinks
M. E. Steedman (nd) The Food and Cookery Publishing Agency, London.

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