21 Mar Drink of the Week: Mississippi Punch Cocktail Recipe
Drink of the Week: Mississippi Punch
Searching for some inspiration for a recipe we were designing recently sent us way back, to ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas and the cocktail guide he wrote in the mid-19th century. The Mississippi Punch grabbed our attention.
‘Punch’ is right; this recipe certainly packs one, calling for two full wineglasses of spirits. By modern sizes, that would be about 10 oz, 5 times the alcohol of a standard cocktail. I’ve read, though, that 19th Century wineglasses were smaller, perhaps as small as 2 oz. Even by that standard, we’re still at double-strength. For all of its potency, it’s quite a pleasant drink. It was probably designed for slow-sipping on a porch on a warm summer day–‘sweetness long drawn out’ through a straw, as the Professor says–but we thoroughly enjoyed it indoors in the winter too.
Mississippi Punch
We went with the 2 oz measure of brandy here. You could take Jerry Thomas literally and go with a wineglass instead, but make sure you share it with a handful of friends.
Ingredients
- 2 oz brandy
- 1 oz Bourbon
- 1 oz dark rum
- 1 oz water (we skipped the water)
- 1/2 oz lemon juice
- 1.5 Tablespoons superfine sugar (we used about half of that)
- berries, orange slices or both, for garnish
Instructions
- Shake vigorously.
- Strain into an ice-filled glass.
- Garnish with fruit.
