Merry Christmas from Drink of the Week!
Now, the way we figure it, your holiday is likely breaking down in one of two ways. Either you’re being besieged with relatives — or are yourself a besieging relative — or you’re one of those folks who, for whatever reason, are finding yourself with not much more than a movie and maybe the proverbial Chinese dinner to keep you company this year.
Whichever of these positions you find yourself in, tonight might well be the perfect time for a super-duper relaxing hot drink. How relaxing? Well David Wondrich, usually at no loss for words in providing mixology advice along with generous dollops of background and history, only had two words to describe this recipe for Hot Milk Punch: “liquid Ambien.”
Now, to be clear, punches of all types, including milk punch, have quite a long history and I’m only starting to learn about them myself. There’s a cold version of this drink and we might well revisit the topic then. In the meantime, it’s Christmas and, most likely, you’re either trying to escape from numerous family duties while reading this, or perhaps distracting yourself in various ways. So, let’s keep it about as simple as we can.
Hot Milk Punch
1 ounce dark rum
1 ounce brandy
6 ounces milk (full fat, probably)
1 teaspoon sugar
nutmeg (garnish)
Heat the milk, preferably in a pan. For whatever reason, microwaved milk seems to lack a certain comforting consistency. While you’re heating the milk, combine the booze and sugar in a coffee cup. Pour in the hot milk and stir. Top with some ground nutmeg and sip cautiously. Whatever your situation, be grateful if you have a roof over your head and have the wherewithal to supply yourself with delicious alcoholic concoctions. Maybe think about actually doing something nice for people who don’t.
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What with the holidays and all, it’s been a pretty crazy week here at DOTW Manor. On the one hand, that made Milk Punch just the right beverage…on the other hand, my general high level of busyness limited my experimentation to a certain degree.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed my drink using both Martell and Reynal brandy combined with Whaler’s Rum, a very inexpensive and very sweet dark rum. Using much pricier (and generally really delicious) Papa’s Pilar dark rum wasn’t quite as comforting somehow. Bacardi 8 simply wasn’t dark enough. Indeed, I really enjoyed the drink when I discarded complexity entirely and used two ounces of the Whaler’s with no brandy at all.
So, make it entirely with a very sweet dark rum, or go whole hog sophisticate and use only cognac. It’s your bedtime. Hope the day that comes before it turns out to be a more or less merry one.
