roman punch

1/2 oz Angostura Bitters
2 2/3 oz Sugar
Juice of 1 Lemon (1 1/2 oz)
Juice of 1/2 Orange (1 1/2 oz)
1 Egg White
5 oz Rum (4 1/2 oz Lemon Hart 80 + 1/2 oz Wray & Nephew)
5 oz Champagne

Stir sugar with juices until sugar is dissolved. Add everything but Champagne, and then shake. Add ice, shake again, and strain into a pair of Collins glasses. Top with 2 1/2 oz Champagne into each glass. I added an orange wheel garnish. The recipe makes two large servings.

On Wednesday after drinking the Ponce de Leon, we still had some of our wedding anniversary sparkling wine(*) left, and I set off to find a further use of the bottle. Soon I found the Roman Punch in the 1949 Angostura Professional Mixing Guide, and the recipe got Andrea's thumbs up. While there is a lot of variation in Roman Punches out there, Angostura's recipe falls within the range of the classics but adds a fun twist by spiking it with a healthy slug of bitters! Moreover, their "punch for 7" was rather large and called for 32 oz of rum; I scaled it back around six fold and called that "punch for 2".
The punch's nose was a combination of dark rum, sparkling wine, and Angostura bitters aromas. The thick, sweet, fruity rum sip was rather delightful and was followed by funky hints of the Wray & Nephew rum and by the Angostura Bitters. The drink reminded me of a dark rum-flavored version of Charles H. Baker's Trinidad Fizz, and likewise, it was just as refreshing.

(*) When we eloped in New Orleans last year, our hotel left us a bottle of sparkling wine in our room. When we discovered it later that evening, we were a few Tales of the Cocktail events in and did not need any more alcohol; therefore, we saved it as our symbolic top of the wedding cake.