quoit club punch

Peels of 12 Lemon (of 3/4 Lemon)
16 oz Sugar (1 oz)
16 oz Lemon Juice (1 oz)
750 mL Jamaican Rum (1 1/4 oz Plantation Xaymaca + 1/4 oz Smith & Cross)
750 mL Cognac (1 1/2 oz Courvoisier VS)
750 mL Madeira (1 1/2 oz Blandy's 5 Year Verdelho)

Make an oleosaccharum with the lemon peels and sugar (2+ hr). Dissolve the sugar in the lemon juice, add the rest of the ingredients, strain to remove the peels, and chill with ice.

On the morning of the Fourth, I read David Wondrich's treatise on the Quiet Fourth of July in the DailyBeast about how he usually throws a big party replete with a punch bowl and other traditions; however, this year, the festivities would be scaled back greatly due to his regard for his guests' and his safety. While we have never thrown an Independence Day party before, I have been tasked with producing a punch for them, and if I was not working that day, I was among friends. This year, it would just be Andrea and myself, and we planned a dinner out on our second floor deck. For a final drink of the night, I plotted out a scaled down number from Wondrich's Punch Book. The Quoit Club Punch created perhaps two centuries ago in Richmond, Virginia, seemed rather delightful with Jamaican rum, brandy, and Madeira, so I prepared the oleosaccharum before I began cooking. Wondrich worked off of an old description of the ingredients and estimated rather well what the recipe could have been.
The Quoit Club rejoiced the senses with rum funk and bright lemon bouquet. Next, lemon, grape, and caramel notes raised a toast on the sip, and the swallow continued on with the funky rum, lemon peel, and grape complexity from the Cognac and Madeira. Overall, it reminded me of a more Colonial and less exotic West Indies Punch.