This Week on “Dinner Classics” with Cocktail Maestro Norm Owen: Punch

This week, for the holiday weekend, Cocktail Maestro Norm Owen tells us the origins of punch – and gives us a couple of recipes to try… and poem by which to remember them!

The punch rule-of-thumb poem:

One of sour,
Two of sweet,
Three of strong,
And four of weak.

Translation: Sour = citrus (lemon, lime, etc.); Sweet = honey, agave, simple syrup; Strong = your spirit (rum, vodka, gin, etc.); Weak = juice, soda, water… Follow these proportions on any scale and you’ll do well!

But if you’d like an expert’s picks, try these:

The Planters Punch
2 oz dark rum
1 oz simple syrup
.75 oz lime juice
3 dashes Angostura bitters

You can either shake these ingredients on ice and pour into a glass over crushed ice, OR pour all ingredients directly in a hurricane glass already filled with crushed ice and swizzle to mix.

The Budapest Punch
This is an invention of Norm’s, which combines the sweet with the strong by using various liqueurs.

.75 oz Amaretto
.75 oz Drambruie
.75 oz Unicum Szilva (a plum liqueur from Hungary)
2 oz pineapple juice
.75 oz lime juice
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake in a cocktail tin with lots of ice. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice, and garnish with a maraschino cherry and orange peel. Yum!