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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.

Philadelphia Fish-House Punch
Toast of Schuylkill and to Independence!

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.”

Martha Washington’s Rum Punch
Cheers to our first First Lady!

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!”

The LUPEC Boston cocktail column in the Weekly Dig is slightly expanded for the annual Summer Dining issue, out this week. With the help of my fellow LUPEC broads, Hanky Panky and Pinky Gonzales, I (Barbara West) encapsulate the history of tiki drinks. We start out with this fact, which surprises a lot of people: the tiki bar phenomenon began in Hollywood, California, in 1934 — right after Prohibition. Also, as anyone over the age of 50 can tell you, there used to be a ton of tiki bars in Boston.

One of our sources, cocktail historian Brother Cleve, suggested a favorite tiki drink of his, the Shrunken Skull, as our featured cocktail for the column. He and his fellow tiki expert, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, whose books reveal the original recipe for the Shrunken Skull and scores of other tiki drinks, are hosting a tiki block party July 19 in New Orleans at Tales of the Cocktail.

Check out LUPEC Boston’s blog post about where to get tiki drinks around eastern Mass., and enjoy shrinking your skull with this:

Shrunken Skull (adapted from Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log)

1 oz Cruzan Estate light rum (aged two years)
1 oz Demerara rum
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce grenadine
dash of Angostura bitters

Shake with ice and pour into a skull mug. Top with 1/2 oz club soda.

Shopping for rum and other tiki ingredients? Here are some tips.

I attended a party recently that Beija Cachaca hosted at Eastern Standard. Cachaca is Brazilian rum. It’s made from sugar cane juice instead of the more common base for rum, molasses. Kevin Beardsley and Steve Diforio, the two fresh-out-of-college guys who started the company that formulated and now imports and markets Beija, declare that “in 2007 the U.S. government officially designated Beija as the World’s First Virgin Cane Rum.”

I wondered how “virgin cane rum” differs from 10 Cane, another new rum made from virgin sugar cane, or rhum agricole, or other cachacas, for that matter. Apparently, the designation hinges on the fact that the distillation process begins a mere 10 hours after the sugar cane is harvested and pressed. “Other brands allow their sugarcane to wallow in the sun for days before distilling it.” Horrors!

OK, despite the tone of the marketing kit (and the annoyingly predictable packaging featuring “an alluring female figure in profile”), the product is pretty solid. For an 80 proof spirit, it has absolutely no burn, especially compared to the harshness that I’ve heard is the defining characteristic of most cachacas available in the U.S. To me, Beija smelled a lot like sake and had a very soft, somewhat sake-like, dryly fruity taste.

Like most people, I had only ever had cachaca in a Caipirinha (together now, that’s “ky-pir-EEN-ya”), a refreshing mixture of cachaca and muddled lime juice and sugar over ice that is competing with the Mojito for Most Popular Latin American Cocktail. The whole idea of the event (besides getting people like me to write about Beija) was to try cachaca in ways that break free from the Caipirinha. My favorite among the cocktails that Jackson Cannon and his bar crew mixed that night was a variation on the Red Hook: 2 oz Beija (instead of rye) and a 1/2 oz each of Punt e Mes and Luxardo Maraschino. Really nice and mellow. A few of us also tried a Negroni with Beija substituted for gin. We agreed that it didn’t quite work; the Campari overpowered the softer spirit.

Other Boston bars serving Beija are Om in Harvard Square, District and the Vintage Lounge.

I’m guessing that the poor individual who inspired the name of a famous tiki drink is what the bar staff of Pho Republique felt like the morning after Sunday night’s wildly popular Beantown Sippin’ Safari with tiki guru Jeff “Beach Bum” Berry. The Bum came up from Asheville, NC, to re-introduce Bostonians to a genre of cocktail considered to be extinct except as a lingering artifact in those mausoleums of a lost era known as Polynesian restaurants.

And so it was that I had my first authentic Navy Grog (light and dark rum, fresh lime and grapefruit, allspice syrup), sipped through a straw stuck into a tall cone of crushed ice. The Bum gave an enlightening slide presentation of old menus, matchbooks and postcard photos from long-defunct tiki restaurants in eastern Massachusetts — I had no idea how many of these establishments there were — and Waitiki played trippy, sexy live exotica, which I had previously only heard on records at hipster cocktail parties.

The supply of crushed ice cones seemed endless, which was a good thing, because the place was packed. This might have had something to do with the fact that the admission price for the event, which started out at $75, was smartly dropped to zero. Someone calculated correctly that brisk sales of $9 tiki drinks would cover the costs of the Sippin’ Safari. The event revealed a surprising thirst for tiki, not only among Bostonians but among visitors representing a resurgence in this culture that has been going on for several years now. I met a tikiphile who flew in from San Francisco just for the event.

OK, so there might have been a few glitches. Maybe the bar neglected to order enough Bacardi 151, so maybe there weren’t enough Zombies to go around. And maybe the dim sum was passed around a little too late, given the strength of the libations. But there was plenty of Navy Grog. And I got to meet not only the Bum, but my fellow drinks blogger Scott Steeves of Scottes Rum Pages. All on a cold Sunday night in the middle of November. If the opportunity presented itself, I’d go on Safari again.

In case you missed it, Christine Liu of the Weekly Dig penned a neat profile of Brother Cleve last week. She aptly observes, “You’d be hard-pressed to deny the influence on the nightlife scene by this music obsessive and cocktail connoisseur.” And for the benefit of rum connoisseurs everywhere, she prints the recipe for Cleve’s tasty creation the Maharaja’s Revenge (see below. Also note that in the Dig’s photo, Cleve happens to be reading the Savoy Cocktail Book, which has been popping up in conversation lately).

In his latest marriage of exotic cocktails and exotica, Cleve joins with tiki drink historian Beach Bum Berry and the band Waitiki to host a full-on tiki fest at Pho Republique in the South End on Sunday, November 18. Admission is free, but you have to RSVP at sippinsafari “at” waitiki “dot” com. See Beach Bum’s slideshow of lost tiki artifacts, including once-upon-a-time tiki bars around Boston. And shake your lei to Waitiki’s “Exotic Tiki Entertainment from Polynesia and Beyond.” Most important, find out what a real tiki cocktail — with fresh-squeezed juices and aged rums — tastes like. You’ll no longer dismiss these as syrupy “umbrella drinks.” Cash bar opens at 6:00 p.m. See ya there.

Maharaja’s Revenge

2 oz Old Monk rum
1 oz apricot brandy
3/4 oz fresh lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Note: Old Monk is an Indian rum with a unique, smoky flavor, so no substitutes. According to the Dig, you can find it at Martignetti’s in Brighton, Marty’s in Allston, Jerry’s in Union Sq, Libby’s in Central Sq and Liquor Land in Roxbury.

I can’t resist adding another rum cocktail that Cleve told me about recently. Here’s the recipe, in the words of the DJ himself.

Jet Pilot

1/4 oz honey*
1/4 oz passion fruit syrup
1/4 oz Lemon Hart 151 rum
1/2 oz lime juice
1/2 oz club soda
1/2 oz dark Puerto Rican rum**
3/4 oz Lemon Hart Demerara rum
3/4 oz dark Jamaican rum ***
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine everything but the club soda into a shaker with crushed ice. Stir vigorously first to mix honey in, then shake and pour into an Old Fashioned tumbler with a lime shell on the bottom. Add club soda and stir gently. Garnish with speared maraschino cherry. Refill at 30,000 ft cruising altitude.

* honey can be heated first to soften.
** St. Croix Cruzan Dark can be substituted for Bacardi Dark
*** Appleton Extra is recommended

Wayne Curtis could be the best drinks/history/travel writer working today. You probably already know this if you have read And a bottle of rum: A history of the New World in ten cocktails. I picked up an autographed copy at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans this summer after prancing like a schoolgirl up to Curtis’ table at an authors’ reception and introducing myself as a fan.

He gets that drinking is both a sublime and shiftless pursuit, and he chronicles the history of rum with an appropriate mixture of fondness and cheek. He traces the spirit’s ups and downs, from its origins in the pirate-riddled trade routes between the Caribbean and the Colonies to Medford, Massachusetts’ once-bustling rum distilleries to the long-lived tiki drink craze to today’s cocktail-of-the-moment, the Mojito.

The narrative is engaging and solidly researched. It contains a lot of nuggets surprising even to those who know a thing or two about spirits — like that the daiquiri caught on in Cuba in the early twentieth century because of an ingredient that had only just become widely available: ice. Also, even though I knew the Andrews Sisters song “Rum and Coca Cola,” I had no idea how big that drink was during and after WWII. It marked the early phase of a trend toward bland and sweet drinks that continues to this day with our myriad vodka-based alco-pops. Luckily, the back of the book has several good rum cocktail recipes that serve as an antidote to that silliness.

Incidentally, one of the people Curtis acknowledges in the back of the book is Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, historian and resurrector of tiki drinks and the culture that surrounded them. He talks about his latest book, Sippin’ Safari, and the legitimacy of the original versions of drinks like the Zombie and the Mai Tai, in this recent Salon article. Give it a read while you’re waiting for And a bottle of rum to arrive in the mail.

I was lucky enough to be present at a July 4 roofdeck party where Misty Kalkofen appropriately brought along a batch of Martha Washington Rum Punch. The stuff was to be admired on principle alone; picture our first First Lady serving the mixture to dignitaries at Mt. Vernon, probably using rum from the estate’s own distillery(!). Give it up for Martha and that badass husband of hers. But the punch didn’t just get by on its historic coolness. It was actually delicious. Misty writes about Martha and her punch, as well as re-creates the recipe, on the LUPEC-Boston blog. (For convenience’s sake, I’ve copied the recipe below. Frankly, I would call the grated cinnamon and nutmeg on the finished drink optional.) When I heard “nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves,” I thought, ‘Uh-oh, this is going to taste weirdly wintry.’ But the flavors of the spices, juices and rum were perfectly melded together to create an almost tea-like iced drink that was a thing unto itself — a dangerous thing unto itself, since it didn’t taste anywhere near boozy as it is.

Martha Washington’s Rum Punch

4 oz lemon juice
4 oz orange juice
4 oz simple syrup
3 lemons quartered
1 orange quartered
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
3 cinnamon sticks broken
6 cloves
12 oz boiling water

In a container mash the lemons, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks and cloves. Add syrup, lemon and orange juice. Pour the boiling water over the mixture. Let it cool. Strain out the solids. Heat the juice mixture to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool and refrigerate over night.

In a punch bowl combine:

3 parts juice mixture
1 part light rum
1 part dark rum
1/2 part orange curacao

Serve the punch over ice. Top with grated nutmeg and cinnamon.

Champagne Juleps were simply something I discovered on cocktaildb.com. I happened to have a bottle of pretty good champagne on hand, plus a tall, vintage glass pitcher, and I wanted to serve a crowd-pleasing, summery cocktail to some dinner guests. Champagne Juleps were the answer. These are essentially Mojitos made with brandy and sparkling wine instead of rum and soda water, and served over crushed ice. I saw one of my guests the following night, and — mind you this guy rarely veers out of Guinness-and-Jameson territory — he said, “I can’t stop thinking about Champagne Juleps.” They were quite tasty if may say so myself. Here’s the cocktaildb.com recipe, followed by my modifications.

Champagne Julep

Build, fill glass 1/2 with crushed ice
1 1/2 oz brandy
1 tsp sugar, muddle with several mint sprigs in a splash of water (4 dashes)
Fill with Champagne
Add mint sprigs
Serve in a double rocks glass (12.0 oz)

I used superfine sugar, and a little more than half of the amount called for, which made the drink plenty sweet. I also only used about 2 mint leaves per serving. Since I was using a pitcher, I muddled the sugar, water and mint right in there, then added the brandy and stirred. The 40-lb bag of crushed ice I bought at Acme Ice was overkill, but I stuffed the rest of it in the freezer for future summer libations.

As Independence Day nears, American drinkers, and particularly New England drinkers, will find validation for their passion for booze in the 2005 Salon article “The spirits of 1776.”

“The American Revolution was not about tea. It was about rum: the real spirit of 1776 … The real conflict between the colonists and Britain began over taxes on molasses, not tea. And that’s where the French come in. The Founding Fathers not only loved the French, but they also loved the molasses that Paris’ Caribbean colonies produced — and they loved even more the rum that New England distillers made from it,” writes Ian Williams.

I can’t flippin’ believe I didn’t know this. Maybe that’s because, as Williams puts it, “years of temperance pressure and Prohibition — and probably the Walt Disney Co. and Hollywood — have essentially shoved the real history of the Revolution down a memory hole.”

If you, like me, were in the dark about this bit of history, mix yourself a rum punch and give this article a read. Then go to your Fourth of July cookout and repeat the info to everyone there.

Extra credit: pick up today’s New York Times, whose Dining section is devoted to drinks of all kinds, and read “A Bit of History, Reborn in a Glass,” an article on bitters. The story is anchored on recent attempts to re-create Abbot’s bitters, which you may already have read about somewhere.

I saw Brother Cleve at Devlin’s in Brighton recently (he was playing with his band, Dragonfly) and mentioned casually that I was getting curious about tiki drinks. Like, what do you have to have on hand to mix them up at home? A couple days later, I got an email from Cleve with a long list of rums, juices and other ingredients, plus opinionated commentary on the do’s and don’ts of stocking your own tiki bar. It’s valuable advice, and I just had to share it. Warning: with what it’ll cost to buy all the ingredients below, you might as well shop around for a liquor license and open a bar.

How to Stock a Tiki Bar — by Brother Cleve
Well, you may hate me for this — cuz it’s not cheap to do your initial setup — but here’s a standard list of what you’d need to be able to flip open a Trader Vic’s guide and make a Polynesian drink. A lot of the mixers are available at Martignetti’s on Soldiers Field Rd., including Fee Brothers Falernum and also an alcoholic Falernum as well. Orgeat is best bought at an Italian shop like Capone’s, which has the real deal made without corn syrup (just like Mexican Coca Cola!). Good sources of odd rums include Wine & Cheese Cask, Downtown Wine & Spirits, Martignetti’s, Beacon Hill Wine, Atlas in Medford.

falernum
orgeat/orzata
grenadine (not Rose’s; pomegranate syrup from Middle Eastern groceries can work)
passion fruit syrup (difficult to find; available via mail-order from Trader Vic’s)
rock candy syrup (see above)
orange curaçao (Bols is best, followed by Marie Brizzard)
simple syrup
Angostura bitters
Pernod

Meyer’s dark (jamaica)
Meyer’s white - plantation style (jamaica)
Meyer’s Legend
Lemon Hart Demerara 84 proof (Guyana. There is a Jamaican lemon hart but very difficult to find)
Lemon Hart Demerara 151 proof
Rogue white rum (Oregon)
Clement rhum agricole (Martinique)
Cruzan 2 yr. old (St. Croix)
Mt. Gay Eclipse gold (Barbados)
Brugal gold (Dominican Republic)
Barbancourt, 3 or 5 star (Haiti)
Wray & Nephew Overproof (Jamaica)
Trader Vic’s brand white and gold
Pusser’s Navy rum (B.V.I.)

orange juice
pineapple juice
passion fruit juice
lime juice
grapefruit juice
coconut cream

When buying juices, go for the single variety rather than the blends. Goya brands are always a good bet. Beware many of the “tropical blends” such as V8 brand, as they contain carrot juice as well, which tends to curdle with rum.

Try to find orgeat without corn syrup. (Unfortunately, Fee Bros. brand has corn syrup in it.)

Some Polynesian cocktails also call for gin, brandy or scotch.

I find Bacardi pretty bland, but some of the other Puerto Rican rums are … well, they’re bland too, but they’re less than mainstream bland (such as Ron Rico). If you stumble across Ron de Barrilito, buy it.

Rums from the French West Indies are “agricole” or “agricultural” rum, made from sugar cane juice as opposed to molasses like all other rums. Tough to find here, although Clement and J.M are slowly appearing. A very different taste. Not essential for tiki drinks, but good to have on hand, and they do blend nicely with fruit juice.

Cane sugar syrup is good to have as well; not that easy to find here, but you can make it from brown sugar and water.

That’d make a good start!

(Um, thanks, Cleve. I think.)

LUPEC invaded my home last night — and it was good. The Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails launched a few months ago and has already created cocktails for and otherwise helped promote several local benefits, like the Operation Frontline Dinner at Tremont 647 and the Taste of the South End. Every month, the Ladies get together for a cocktail party celebrating a theme of the hostess’ choosing. Last night’s theme was Drinkin’ Dames in Classic Cinema, and several attendees dressed for the occasion in polka-dot blouses, pillbox hats, fishnet stockings and Mary Jane pumps. I am proud to say that these discerning tipplers approved of the five dame-influenced cocktails I served.

Ginger Rogers

• 1 oz dry gin
• 1 oz dry vermouth
• 1 oz apricot brandy
• 4 dashes lemon juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. The liquid equivalent of Ginger floating elegantly in a feathered gown.

Barbara West

• 2 oz dry gin
• 1 oz dry sherry (Amontillado works well)
• 1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist. Thanks to Ted Haigh for resurrecting this excellent aperitif cocktail. (Who the hell was Barbara West? No one knows. When serving this drink, make up your own story about her.)

Roman Holiday

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 1/2 oz Punt e Mes
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
• splash of fresh orange juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Thin orange slice. Refreshing!

Ann Sheridan

• 1 1/2 oz Myers dark rum (recipe called for Bacardi dark rum; other recipes call for Bacardi light rum)
• 1/2 oz orange curacao
• 1/2 oz lime juice

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Marlene Dietrich

• 2 oz rye whiskey
• 1/2 oz orange curacao
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake well over ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Lemon twist and flamed orange peel. (OK, I took liberties with the original recipe, which called for 3/4 wineglass (!) of rye and only two dashes of curacao. A lightly adulterated glass of rye was probably just right for Marlene, but I wanted a little more balance.)