Recipes for Punch
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This book has a number of recipes on mixed drinks in the form of Punch, as in punch with liquor. These are recipes that try to recreate the formulas used in Punch houses you would find in places like Bombay, India. The punch recipe below is the appropriately named Bombay Presidency Punch. It includes palm sugar, lime juice, and palm arrack (Indian liquor made from fermented coconut flower or sugarcane).
Title: Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl: an Anecdotal History of the Original Monarch of Mixed Drinks, with More Than Forty Historic Recipes, Fully Annotated, and a Complete Course in the Lost Art of Compounding Punch Author: David Wondrich Excerpt: |
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Bombay Presidency Punch
Made as it is detailed in the following instructions, though, with an attempt at re-creating the precise formula dished out in the Punch houses of the company's Indian dominions, Gayer's Punch is as simple as it is delicate, and it possesses an elusive charm that is quite unlike that of any other Punch, Cocktail or mixed drink.
Be forewarned, though: as one of the governor's predecessors wrote in 1676, "the usuall effect of that accursed Bombay Punch" involves its consumers "besotting themselves with drunkenness" and then quarreling, dueling and committing any number of other acts "to the shame, scandall, and ruine of our nation and religion." I haven't seen any dueling yet when I've trotted out this formula, but there's been an argument or two, and no end of blaspheming.
Be forewarned, though: as one of the governor's predecessors wrote in 1676, "the usuall effect of that accursed Bombay Punch" involves its consumers "besotting themselves with drunkenness" and then quarreling, dueling and committing any number of other acts "to the shame, scandall, and ruine of our nation and religion." I haven't seen any dueling yet when I've trotted out this formula, but there's been an argument or two, and no end of blaspheming.
The Original Formula
If any man comes into a victualling house to drink punch, he may demand one quart good Goa arak, half a pound of sugar and half a pint of good lime water; and make his own punch. If the bowl be not marked with the clerk of the market's seal, then the bowl may be freely broken without paying anything either for bowl or punch.
Source: Order Book of the Bombay Government, August 13, 1694
Suggested Procedure
Break up 8 ounces of jaggery or palm sugar and put it into a three-quart Punch bowl. Add 8 ounces lime juice and muddle together until all the sugar has dissolved. Add 1 quart Sri Lankan palm arrack (or any other palm arrack) and stir. Add 5 cups water and grate nutmeg over the top.
Yield: 10 cups.
Notes
While this recipe is a good place to play around with exotic Asian palm sugars, they are not essential to its success (and it should be noted that they are not all alike: if yours is hard, you might have to dissolve it first in 1 cup boiling water, subtracting that amount from the water that goes in at the end). You'll notice that Gayer's order said nothing about dilution, presumably because if you're brewing the stuff yourself you can add however much water you like (it would be useful, however, to have a close look at one of those seal-stamped bowls). Another government regulation, this one from the mother country in 1736, suggests that Punch should have no more than two parts water to one of spirits, but the spirits then were generally higher in proof than much of what we get now, so it's best to start with equal parts and adjust upward. The order also makes no mention of spice. Nutmeg is always appropriate, though, but you can also use Mandelslo's rosewater - start with no more than a teaspoon, and adjust from there - or Bernier's mace, in which case you'll need to muddle a blade of it in with the sugar before adding the lime juice.
- from "Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl: an Anecdotal History of the Original Monarch of Mixed Drinks, with More Than Forty Historic Recipes, Fully Annotated, and a Complete Course in the Lost Art of Compounding Punch," by David Wondrich
Source: Order Book of the Bombay Government, August 13, 1694
Suggested Procedure
Break up 8 ounces of jaggery or palm sugar and put it into a three-quart Punch bowl. Add 8 ounces lime juice and muddle together until all the sugar has dissolved. Add 1 quart Sri Lankan palm arrack (or any other palm arrack) and stir. Add 5 cups water and grate nutmeg over the top.
Yield: 10 cups.
Notes
While this recipe is a good place to play around with exotic Asian palm sugars, they are not essential to its success (and it should be noted that they are not all alike: if yours is hard, you might have to dissolve it first in 1 cup boiling water, subtracting that amount from the water that goes in at the end). You'll notice that Gayer's order said nothing about dilution, presumably because if you're brewing the stuff yourself you can add however much water you like (it would be useful, however, to have a close look at one of those seal-stamped bowls). Another government regulation, this one from the mother country in 1736, suggests that Punch should have no more than two parts water to one of spirits, but the spirits then were generally higher in proof than much of what we get now, so it's best to start with equal parts and adjust upward. The order also makes no mention of spice. Nutmeg is always appropriate, though, but you can also use Mandelslo's rosewater - start with no more than a teaspoon, and adjust from there - or Bernier's mace, in which case you'll need to muddle a blade of it in with the sugar before adding the lime juice.
- from "Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl: an Anecdotal History of the Original Monarch of Mixed Drinks, with More Than Forty Historic Recipes, Fully Annotated, and a Complete Course in the Lost Art of Compounding Punch," by David Wondrich