In the quest to make a Swedish Punch Clone, I had combined two Jerry Thomas recipes and made a variation using Sri Lankan Arrack. While interesting, I later discovered it wasn’t very Similar to Swedish Punch.
I re-used the same procedure recently using Batavia Arrack.
This was what I did:
Underhill Punsch II
1 cup Appleton V/X Rum
1/2 cup Batavia Arrack
1 cup hot extra strong tea (2 tsp Peet’s Lung Ching Dragonwell tea brewed in 1 cup water)
1 cup sugar
1 lemon sliced thinly, seeds removed
1 lime sliced thinly, seeds removed
Put sliced lemon and lime in a resealable non-reactive container large enough to hold 4 cups of liquid. Pour Rum and Batavia Arrack over citrus. Cover and steep for 6 hours.
Dissolve sugar in hot tea and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate.
After 6 hours, pour rum off of sliced citrus, without squeezing fruit.
Combine tea syrup and flavored rum. Filter and bottle in a clean sealable container. Age at least overnight and enjoy where Swedish Punch is called for.
The interaction between the Chinese green tea and the lime gives this an interesting flavor. One person who tried it compared it to the bitter greens they’d just had in their salad. Just on its own, at room temperature, this is a little much, as the intense bitter lime aftertaste tends to linger on the palate. Over ice, though, it is quite a pleasant beverage. I’m going to be interested to see how this variation mixes.
[...] A more traditional version of Swedish Punsch than the previous Underhill Punsch II. [...]
[...] The second “made from scratch” ingredient I wanted to highlight was swedish punsch. If you aren’t familiar with this ingredient, don’t be surprised. It comes up most often in old cocktail books and recipes usually dating prior to Prohibition. After reading through several old cocktail books and online discussions (especially on eGullet) I turned to the recipe used by Erik over at Underhill-Lounge. I won’t recreate Erik’s recipe here, but here is a link to his site. [...]