Punch

Punch is making a comeback. Last fall, I went to a presentation at Paul's by Washington mixologist Dan Searing, who has written a book about punch and who fixed one for us as part of his demonstration. His objective was to sell some of the spirits from the distributor he represented, but the Ruby Punch he made using Stonewall American Rum and Graham's Six Grapes Reserve Port was delicious. I made the punch -- which also includes green tea, demarara sugar and lemon juice -- for Thanksgiving and it was a big hit with the dozen or so family members there.

So my Christmas wish list included a crystal punch bowl with cups and I made a spiced rum punch from Food and Wine. The spirits were Smith & Cross high-proof Jamaican rum, and Sailor Jerry spiced rum, along with grapefruit, orange and lemon juice, and maraschino liqueur, simple syrup, and Peychaud's. It was fun, but a little too rummy.

The third punch of the year then came on New Year's Eve, with an Anjou punch from Food and Wine that combined cognac, Belle de Brillet pear liqueur, and triple sec with a cinnamon sugar syrup, fresh lemon juice and chilled Champagne. This, too, was a big hit with the dozen drinkers at our dinner party.

Rum, in the form of arrack, lies at the origin of punch, so many of them will include rum and it is perhaps the ideal way to drink this spirit. A good punch, it seems, has a high but no overpowering spirit content, a sour aspect, and some form of dilution. The green tea used to dilute the Ruby Punch gives that mixture an extra punch, I think. The citrus dilution in the Christmas punch was less satisfying somehow. The Anjou punch relied on crushed ice for dilution, both in the punch bowl and the serving cups.

Ice is a critical factor. In the first two, I used a block of ice frozen in a tupperware container. Crushed ice in the traditional sense is virtually unobtainable. The powdery crap sold by Talbert's was useless, and the closest I could get was a relatively small cube from Paul's.

The beauty of punch is that everyone is drinking the same thing and getting the same gentle buzz at the same time. It's a communal affair and brings people together. Also, given its relative obscurity until recently, it is a nice surprise to people who think of punch as premixed fruit drinks.

I have Searing's book and another pathbreaker from David Wondrich, as well as the magazines, which are now including punch recipes -- and more cocktail recipes in general.

So watch this space. There will be more.