Creative Drinking

"How about a nice Swedish Punsch?"

Tonight I have been playing with my new bottle of Swedish Punsch, a sharp, smoky, rummy liqueur produced and sold in Sweden where it used to be very popular and is enjoyed in cocktails or sipped straight, warm or cold. It is an essential ingredient in several recipes in classic cocktail books. In the US it became somewhat of a lost ingredient after Prohibition but is now making a comeback. The base spirit of Swedish Punsch is Batavia Arrack, a southeastern Asian liquor derived from sugar cane and red rice.I have since made my own homemade, adding black tea and citrus and sugar and demerara rum to the arrack, to varied results. Personally I LOVE the already marketed Kronan. I have tried several recipes tonight, trying it with gin and brandy and rum, but my favorite is the one from my "Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails" book, simply called "Doctor Cocktail", after the author. I adjusted the lime juice slightly and found this to be a good decision. I LOVE this drink and I really feel it is just waiting for the right audience, which I plan to find, one way or another. Get me behind a bar and I will put this to good use.

Doctor Cocktail Ingredients:

• 2 oz Jamaican rum (I used Meyers dark)
• 1 oz Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
• 1/2 oz freshly squeezed lime juice (adjusted)

The book's recipe calls for 1 ounce of lime juice but I found that even taking it down to 3/4 oz, the lime hijacks the drink. I love the taste of the Punsch and I prefer the lime to be just a buddy and not overpower. Trust me, I did the legwork. Sometime in the 19th century, the Swedish tradition was to warm it up and enjoy it with pea soup on thursdays. Punsch and Pea soup thursday. Sounds pretty good to me.

"Punsch has fallen out of flavour in mainstream Swedish society, but is still big at formal dinners at the oldest universities and engineering schools. There it is served ice cold to accompany very strong drip coffee. While waiting to be served the guest sings a song in anticipation."