Monday, March 8, 2010

curacao punch

1 oz Jamaican Rum (Coruba)
2 oz Orange Curaçao (Bols)
1 oz Brandy
1 oz Soda Water
2-3 dash Lemon Juice
1/2 Tbsp Sugar (1/4 oz Simple Syrup)

Add sugar to soda water and lemon juice and stir until dissolved (or use simple syrup). Add rest of ingredients and ice, shake, and strain over a rocks glass filled with shaved ice (or fresh ice cubes). Garnish with fruit.

On Friday night, we finally made it over to Brookline to visit Lineage Restaurant for their Lineage of the Cocktail nights (Fridays and Saturdays after 9 pm) where they spotlight two recipes from Ted Haigh's Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails as a supplement to their page long cocktail menu. The concept for the program stemmed from head bartender Ryan Lotz who took over the bar last May. That night, the two drinks were the Curaçao Punch and the Bebbo. The Bebbo was basically a Bee's Knees with orange juice so I opted for the Curaçao Punch which seemed rather interesting but its sweet looking recipe had deterred me in the past from making it home. Haigh uncovered the recipe for the Curaçao Punch in Harry Johnson's New and Improved Bartenders Manual from 1882.

The Curaçao Punch started with a citrussy nose which prepared the drinker for a sweet orange flavor on the sip. As the ice melted and diluted down the beverage, the drink dried out to something pleasantly balanced for my palate. The most notable ingredient in this recipe was Lotz's choice of Coruba rum. This dark Jamaican rum from the Wray & Nephew distillery donated rich barrel-aged flavors to the drink in addition to some funky notes on the swallow reminiscent of rhum agricoles; all of these rum's notes worked well to complement and balance the hefty slug of orange Curaçao in the drink.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hope you are doing well, and just wanted to let you know we've named the Peychaud's heavy cocktail you tried while at Lineage:

"The Fritz," after New Orleans born abstract expressionist Fritz Bultman. I felt the large proportions and bold flavors in the drink were fitting for the roughly textured and vividly colored ab-ex paintings, and looking for a New Orleans themed name made Bultman a shoe-in.

Hope to see you guys again,

Ryan Lotz

SPS said...

I'm not sure where I went wrong with this drink (maybe it was my choice of orange liqueur - cointreau - or perhaps the sugar - demerara), but it came out way too sweet. I improvised by upping the rum content a bit and topping it off with some extra soda water. Oh well. Live, learn, drink, and...well, drink some more. And thanks for the Boston bar recommendations that you passed on last week. Much appreciated.

frederic said...

Ted Haigh does warn that the drink may be too sweet. Ryan cut down on the sugar in his but it was still a bit sweet. The melting ice helped to bet it to the right level. Probably leaving out the sugar completely would be a good start (since curacao is plenty sweet at 2 oz).