Creative Drinking

Who wants the funk?                     Swedish Punsch and Batavia Arrack

As I may have mentioned previously, I'm a big fan of Swedish Punsch. The tradition of Swedish Punsch dates as far back as the early 17th century, when sailors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) began infusing Batavia Arrack, ( a clear, sugar- and rice-based Javanese spirit with a rough, "otherworldly" bite) with sugar and spice to create "punch". By the turn of the 20th century, Swedish Punsch was bottled and found its way to America, where it became an essential ingredient in numerous classic cocktails. However, its popularity faded when Prohibition was established, and it soon disappeared from the market. It's return  in 2011 has made it possible to revisit numerous forgotten cocktails. It has a very rummy, funky taste and can easily dominate a drink if not handled responsibly. My favorite way to drink it is, of course, with an aggressive dark jamaican rum with enough "hogo" to stand up to it. The term Hogo was used in the 18th-19th century to describe the sulfurous odors that happen naturally when raw sugar cane juice is distilled. Basically a strong funky rum that packs a punch. It is a taste that was once desirable but rum distillers tried hard to tame it in the 20th century and light rums like Bacardi became the preferred taste.

So, anyway, I was doing some internet cocktail surfing this evening and came across this recipe. I was anxious to try my peach bitters as they were something I HAD TO HAVE at that moment and they have been sitting around doing nothing since. This was a GREAT addition to the rum and the punsch.
There is a similar cocktail to this called The Tanglefoot that I found in one of my old recipe books that uses lemon juice instead of the vermouth and a light rum vs the dark. I decided on the funk tonight. Gotta have that funk.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz dark rum (I used Zaya)
• 3/4 oz Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
• 3/4 oz Dolin Blanc vermouth ( a bit sweeter than dry)
• 3/4 oz fresh orange juice
• 2 dashes of peach bitters (Fee Bros)

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The peach bitters really shine through here and compliment the other tastes extremely well. At the moment, Kronan is the only brand of Swedish Punsch available in the US. It's sort of a pain in the ass to get around here so I made a homemade version with Batavia Arrack, demerara rum, sugar, citrus and tea that turned out pretty nice and good to have around.

Mine is a bit lighter for when you don't gotta have the funk.