Episode 45: Early Colonial Rum Punch

Makes about Four 5oz servings

  • 1 cup green tea (hot)

  • ¼ cup jaggery or other dark raw sugar (demerara or muscovado)

  • ¼ cup fresh squeezed lime juice

  • 1 cup aged Jamaican or Caribbean rum

  • Fresh grated nutmeg

In a bowl or pitcher, pour tea over sugar and stir to dissolve. If using jaggery, you may need to break it up with a muddler in the liquid to help it dissolve faster. Stir in the lime juice and rum and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Ladle or pour into punch glasses and grate a bit of fresh nutmeg over the top before serving.

Alcoholic Punch was still in its infancy in the 1670s, so recipes from that era are hard to come by. This recipe is not exactly an “authentic” Colonial American punch recipe, but rather a twist on a 1668 recipe shared in David Wondrich’s book, “Punch”. The oldest recipe included, it predates the popularity of oleo saccharum. Instead, it simply calls for lime juice but no zest.

This recipe was written down in England and contains several Indian & Indonesian ingredients that would have been hard to come by in early colonial America, so to try to approximate a punch similar to what might have been consumed in America in the 1670s, some substitutions and tweaks to this recipe were necessary.  

In place of Batavia Arrack, dark Caribbean rum is used instead. A raw sugar called jaggery is used to try to recreate the dark, raw, funky flavor of colonial era loaf sugar. Raw sugars such as demerara, muscovado, or “Sugar in the Raw” could be used in its place.

 For authenticity’s sake, the recipe is not served with ice, but keeping it cold in the refrigerator is fine. The recipe has also been scaled down for a smaller serving size but could easily be scaled back up. For more information, please listen to Minisode 40 on the history of punch.

Episode 39: Colonial Stone Fence

  • 2 ounces of dark rum

  • Hard cider (tart, dry, funky cider is best) *see note

  • Garnish options: lemon, sliced apple, or fresh herbs

Pour rum over ice in a tall bar or collins glass. Top off with cider and garnish with a lemon twist, a slice of apple, or a sprig of mint if desired.

*Note: This will produce a Stone Fence similar to the one Colonial Americans might have enjoyed. If you prefer, feel free to substitute a sweeter, fruitier cider for a more modern flavor.

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In the 1770s, The Catamount Tavern, in what is now Vermont, was Ethan Allen’s home bar and also served as the headquarters for the Green Mountain Boys militia group that he commanded.

Legend has it that the night before their pre-dawn capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British in 1775, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys were drinking round after round of Stone Fence cocktails. This colonial new England classic gave them the liquid courage needed to take the fort by surprise.

The Stone Fence is probably named after the primitive stacked stone fences surrounding farmland all over New England. In the days of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, it was made with tart hard cider and dark molasses-y New England rum.  Over the years though, the drink evolved. About a century later, when Jerry Thomas published a recipe, his Stone Fence was made with sweet nonalcoholic pressed cider and bourbon whiskey. While the Jerry Thomas version is undeniably delicious, this recipe is closer to the original 18th century version.

Episode 21: Mai Tais Two Ways

The Original 1944 Mai Tai

  • 1 1/2 oz White rum

  • 3/4 oz Orange curaçao

  • 3/4 oz Fresh lime juice

  • 1/4 - 1/2 oz Orgeat Syrup

  • 1/2 oz Dark rum

  • Garnish: Lime wheel, Mint sprig

Add the white rum, curaçao, lime juice and orgeat syrup into a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake to combine.
Strain into a double Old Fashioned glass filled with finely crushed ice (if available). Gently pour the dark rum over the top trying to float it on top.
Garnish with a lime wheel and mint sprig.

1953 Royal Hawaiian Mai Tai:

  • ½ oz Curaçao Liqueur (Triple Sec)

  • 1½ oz Gold/ Amber Rum

  • 1 oz Dark Rum

  • ¼ oz Lime juice

  • 1½ oz Pineapple juice

  • 1½ oz Orange juice

  • ¼ oz Orgeat syrup

  • 1 teaspoon maraschino cherry juice (red) or grenadine for color

  • Garnish: Orange slice, pineapple, red maraschino cherry

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice and shake to combine.
Strain into a large whiskey glass filled with finely crushed ice (if available).
Garnish with a wedge of pineapple, an orange wheel, and a maraschino cherry. 

mai tais two ways beyond reproach

Tiki culture and it’s quintessential cocktails all started in 1933 when Ernest Beaumont-Gantt opened a Polynesian-themed bar and restaurant in Hollywood called Don the Beachcomber. The restaurant featured Cantonese food with a decor of flaming torches, rattan furniture, floral leis, and carved tiki masks and wooden sculptures of Polynesian gods.

This was also the first restaurant to ever focus an entire drink menu on mixing rum with flavored syrups and fresh fruit juices, which they originally called "Rhum Rhapsodies", but were later called Tiki cocktails. These drinks were usually served in fancy glasses, hollowed out pineapples, or drilled coconuts, and sometimes even giant fish bowl sized communal glasses with long straws for sharing.

Perhaps the best known and most popular Tiki cocktail ever is the Mai Tai.

It was originally invented by another restauranteur namedTrader Vic in Oakland California in 1944. Don Beach later accused Trader Vic of stealing the recipe from him, saying that his punch, the Q.B. Cooler, which he invented in 1933, was suspiciously similar. But even if it was inspired by the Q.B. Cooler, they’re very different drinks and the Cooler has almost twice as many ingredients. Vic Bergeron later wrote in his book, "anyone who says I didn’t create this drink is a dirty stinker."

The Mai Tai became so popular that within a few years of its invention, the world ran out of the aged rum called for in the original recipe, so most recipes today call for a mix of light and dark rum.

In the beginning, the Mai Tai was a simple and rum forward drink, but In 1953, a cruise company hired Vic Bergeron to oversee their cocktail menus at their hotels in Hawaii. He reworked the drink adding orange juice and pineapple juice to make it feel more Hawaiian and to sweeten the recipe, so it’d be more tourist friendly.

The Hawaiian version became even more popular than the original and now most people think that’s what a Mai Tai is supposed to taste like. Both versions are absolutely delicious, although they’re so different that they probably shouldn’t both have the same name.

Episode 16: The Piña Colada

  • 2 ½ oz white rum

  • 1 ½ oz pineapple juice

  • 1 ½ oz sweetened coconut cream (We used Coco Lopez)

  • ½ oz lime juice

  • 2 cups ice

  • ½ oz dark rum (optional)

  • Pineapple wedge & cocktail parasol (optional)

Combine white rum, pineapple juice, coconut cream, lime juice, and ice in a high powered blender. Pulse to break up ice and then blend until smooth, creamy, and free of ice chunks.
Pour into a hurricane glass and top with remaining dark rum if desired. Garnish with a wedge of pineapple and a cocktail parasol for the full gaudy 70s effect.

Makes 1 cocktail

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Note: Like a lot of cocktails, it’s hard to nail down the exact origin story.

One story claims that a 19th century Puerto Rican pirate gave his crew a mixed drink with coconut, pineapple and white rum to boost morale on the ship, but historians say this is dubious.

The New York Times noted a similar drink in an article about Cuba in the 1950s.

The most accepted story is that a bartender at the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan created the drink in 1954. He said the Piña Colada, “captured the true nature and essence of Puerto Rico”.

Another story places the origins at a restaurant in Puerto Rico in 1963.

Either way, by the 70s, Piña Coladas were blowing up, and In 1978 Puerto Rico proclaimed the cocktail its official drink.