Heads up, drinkbostonians: Josey Packard, one of Boston’s best bartenders, will appear tonight on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC (9:00 p.m. EST) to mix up a flaming bowl of Christmas Rum Punch. Go, Josey, go!
Regular viewers know that Maddow often closes her political talk show with a bit on cocktails — I recall Dale DeGroff mixing Irish coffees on the set earlier this year. More recently, Maddow shared with her audience an investigative coup: an actual drink menu from one of the Obamas’ regular White House cocktail parties. As you see in the short video segment above, she not only described the cocktails (the Emerson, the Stone Fence and the Frost) but explained some of their ingredients (applejack, maraschino liqueur), named and photographed the bartenders who served them (Derek Brown and Adam Bernbach), pointed out that bartending is an American invention, and signed off with this delicious nugget: “And remember, Martinis do not contain vodka.”
Packard, a friend of Maddow’s who did guest spots about cocktails on the latter’s radio show back in her Air America days, will make a punch recipe adapted from the 1949 edition of Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, about which Paul Clarke writes humorously on Cocktail Chronicles. I got a live preview at a recent Christmas party as Josey did a (not so) dry run of the flaming punch for the assembled guests. It was very cool, what with all the spices and orange oil making sparks as they were tossed into the bowl. Even the sternest Scrooge would be uplifted by this vessel of flaming goodness.
Watch the show, congratulate Josey the next time you’re at Drink, and have a merry Christmas!
It’s one of the oddest drinks I’ve ever tasted. And I mean that in a good way. I first had milk punch (not to be confused with the simpler concoction of brandy, rum or bourbon, sugar, whole milk and nutmeg served over crushed ice) at a Stir class last winter. It was sweet, velvety, rich … and confusing. That’s because, though it’s made with milk, it’s somewhere between translucent and transparent. In other words, not at all “milky.” Leave it to the bartenders at Drink to reintroduce this punch, which takes two days to make, to the modern imbiber. I write a short introduction to one of their recipes, Rum-Hibiscus Milk Punch, in today’s online Globe.
There are many variations on the basic milk punch recipe. The drinkboston punch party at Eastern Standard in June featured Milk Punch No. 1 from the Savoy Cocktail Book. Aphra Behn, a 17th-century English dramatist and novelist and allegedly the first woman to make a living as a writer, is credited with inventing milk punch, or at least having the first widely publicized recipe for it. Whatever its origins, it became well known enough during the 18th century for Benjamin Franklin to share a recipe for milk punch with James Bowdoin during his 1763 stay in Boston.
“Franklin’s Milk Punch recipe shares characteristics of two types of beverages — possets and syllabubs,” according to the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Wow. I am so looking forward to walking into a Boston bar and ordering possets and syllabubs.
The boozin’ broads of the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (LUPEC) are at it again. This Tuesday, October 21, they’re going to mix up a coupla big bowls of strong punch and throw a relaunch party for the Little Black Book of Cocktails, which just had its second printing. The event will take place at Somerville’s cool-stuff store, Grand, in Union Square from 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Girls and boys alike are invited to hang out with the Ladies, grab a cup of punch, have a bite to eat, purchase a copy or two of the Little Black Book (filled with the Ladies’ favorite cocktail — and punch — recipes) and shop for everything from bubble calendars to Glow-in-the-Dark Nooka watches to pillows with kitschy embroidered ships.
The Little Black Book costs $15, and all proceeds go to local women’s charities. There is no admission charge for the party, but please RSVP if you plan to attend by emailing jono at grandthestore dot com. See you there!
If Monday night’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party, hosted by drinkboston at Eastern Standard, were a high-diving competition, it would score a perfect 10 for both execution and technical difficulty. I mean, how often do you walk into a bar and see 60-odd people holding decorative cups filled with punch made from 200-year-old recipes? How often are you served a drink that involves steeping three kinds of booze, multiple fruits and spices and green tea in hot water for several hours, adding milk, straining the curdled mixture through cheesecloth twice and chilling the finished product down with a massive ring of ice decorated with pineapple slices? And how often do you see bartenders ladling liquid out of large, flowing bowls instead of shaking cocktails?
Thanks to Jackson Cannon and Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli for concocting the four punches — all deceptively potent and enjoyably distinct from one another — from recipes in David Wondrich’s Imbibe!, the Savoy Cocktail Book and Martha Washington’s own notebook. And thanks to the rest of Eastern Standard’s staff for the charcuterie, deviled eggs, beef carpaccio and other tasty bites, and the gracious service.
Below is a list of the punches that were served, along with their key ingredients and bits of historical poetry revealing that odes to alcoholic beverages in America existed well before the Algonquin Round Table. To create these punches yourself, either consult the aforementioned sources or click on the links below.
Lemon juice
Cane sugar
Mixture of cognac, rum and house-made peach brandy
Cold water
Created by a colonial rod and gun club on the banks of Pennsylvania’s Schuykill River and remembered in modern times thanks to a recipe passed on by a Philadelphia lawyer, Charles Godfrey Leland.
“There’s a little place just out of town,
Where, if you go to lunch,
They’ll make you forget your mother-in-law
With a drink called Fish-House Punch.”
Juice of lemons & oranges
Spice mix of clove, cinnamon & nutmeg
Oranges
Curacao, light & dark rums
Water
This recipe is said to have come from Martha Washington’s own journal.
“This ancient Silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times,
Of joyous days, and jolly nights and merry Christmas Chimes
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave and true,
That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new.”
Chatham Artillery Punch For soldiers young and old, men of action, brave and bold!
Pineapples, lemons, oranges & cherries
Native wine, rum & rye
Cherry nectar
Strong green tea & champagne
The house punch of the Chatham Artillery of Savannah, Georgia, formed in 1786. Recipe available in Imbibe!
“When you visit the town of Savannah
Enlist ‘neath the temperance banneh,
For if you should lunch,
On artillery punch,
It will treat you in sorrowful manneh.”
Milk Punch #1 Celebrate the wit and wisdom of Aphra Behn.
Juice and rind of lemons
Pineapple
Spice mix of clove, coriander, cinnamon & green cardamom
Brandy, rum & batavia arrack
Strong green tea, water & milk
Aphra Behn was a 17th-century English dramatist and novelist and the “first woman ever to earn her living solely by writing,” according to Imbibe! She is also credited with inventing milk punch, a drink that is “undeniably smooth, but not necessarily lush,” writes Wondrich. This recipe is the Milk Punch #1 from the Savoy Cocktail Book.
“If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good Punch, a friend, or being dry
Or least we should be by and by,
Or any other reason why!”
You saved the date, but have you made reservations yet for drinkboston’s Flowing Bowl Punch Party at Eastern Standard this Monday, June 30? No? You were waiting to hear just what was going to be in those flowing bowls, weren’t you? Well, here are the goods. Jackson Cannon and his talented staff will mix four classic punches and serve them out of traditional bowls in the restaurant’s front lounge and porch area. The featured liquids are Martha Washington’s Rum Punch, Philadelphia Fish House Punch, Milk Punch No. 1 (from the Savoy cocktail book)* and … a mystery punch to be determined. You’ll just have to show up to find out what’s in that bowl.
Remember, this isn’t your grandmother’s punch (cheap champagne, ginger ale, orange sherbet). It’s your great-great-great-great-great grandmother’s punch (strong spirits, sugar, fresh citrus, spices). Rest assured that, while these mixtures contain plenty of rum, brandy and other bracing liquors, they are remarkably balanced and not overly sweet.
Don your party threads and commune with us around the flowing bowl. To reserve tickets by credit card, call Eastern Standard at 617-532-9100. Tickets are $30 and include servings of four different kinds of punch and passed appetizers. The party starts at 5:30 p.m. and lasts ’til the punch runs out.
Want to receive email invitations to drinkboston events? Send a request to drinkboston at comcast dot net.
* The recipe for Milk Punch No. 1 is complicated. It involves steeping brandy, Jamaica rum, Batavia Arrack, spices, lemon, pineapple and green tea in boiling water, then adding milk and more lemon, then straining the whole curdled mixture into a container and serving it cold. You have to try it to believe it.
2 oz Beefeater gin
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 oz St. Germain
3 drops orange blossom water
1 1/2 oz heavy cream
1 fresh raw egg white
1 oz soda water
Method: Shake all ingredients for 10-12 minutes and pour into a collins glass. Top with soda water. Garnish with orange oil.
