MxMo Punch: The Uppercut

I am thrilled to be posting my first contribution to MxMo (Mixology Monday)! This month’s topic is punch, and it’s being hosted by Hobson’s Choice.

Punch is one of my favorite tipples. I love the big punch bowls, the cups, the mixing of all the various ingredients, the simplicity of it all, the history behind it…it’s all quite awesome. I haven’t made too many bowls of punch to date, and recipes for single-cup versions don’t necessarily abound.  As such I challenged myself for this month’s MxMo event to make something that had all the ingredients a punch should have (sour, sweet, strong, weak, spice) while still being a single serving.

One thing I wanted to make sure of was that I used tea in the recipe: tea is a traditional liquid to use in punches as the weak part (while providing some of the spice as well). And besides, I rather enjoy tea. So here is what I came up with!

The Uppercut

The Uppercut

• 1 oz Pimm’s No. 1 liqueur
• 1 oz dry vermouth (used Noilly Prat)
• ½ oz dry gin (used Bombay)
• 1 oz unsweetened pineapple juice
• 2 oz highly sweetened black tea
• several dashes Angostura bitters
• club soda

Brew the tea strong and add enough sugar to make it sweet to taste (sweeter is better but go with your palate). Add it and the other ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake well, then strain into a glass. Top with some club soda and grate some fresh nutmeg over the top.

The flavor of this punch is quite nice.  All the spice from the tea and bitters give it

wonderful complexity, and the pineapple juice adds tartness/sourness but its taste doesn’t really come through, which is fine with me (I would have used lemons if I had any of them but being short on fresh citrus and cash I used what I had).  The bit of dry vermouth and Pimm’s also offer nice flavor and notes to it.  The club soda considerably dilutes it, so I might recommend doing without or possibly using a sparkling wine instead. The gin could also be played around with here (though it probably works better with the Pimm’s than other spirits), possibly using rye or bourbon, even brandy.  One thing is for sure, I will be making this again!

Assembling the ingredients for the punch

Cheers!

Update: The round-up for all posts from this month’s MxMo has been posted by Mike over at Hobson’s Choice: check it out here! Check it out, there’s a lot of great punches to be seen and tried!

Brewing the tea