The Spirits #117: Caramelised Pineapple Punch

~ Oleo-saccharum ~ The odour of burning rum ~ Russell Norman RIP ~ The Spirits ongoing ~

~ CARAMELISED PINEAPPLE PUNCH ~
Serves 8-10

The peel of four lemons and the juice of two
150g brown sugar
One pineapple
Two cinnamon sticks
500ml dark rum
200ml madeira (sweet sherry, marsala, muscat, possibly even Italian vermouth will also work)
1 litre of black tea

1. Cut the outer husk off the pineapple, reserving the fronds - which make fetching garnishes, presuming they’re not too manky. Core the pineapple and slice it into even chunks. Of course, you could simply buy frozen pineapple chunks from the supermarket and let them thaw.

2. Peel the lemons, taking care to remove as little white pith as possible.

3. Put the citrus peel in a saucepan, add the sugar, and pound with a muddler or wooden spoon until the sugar absorbs all of the fragrant oils from the zest. (This part is called oleo-saccharum; the key to the deliciousness of all punches. If you’ve any other citrus lying around - oranges, grapefruits - you might want to use some of their zest too).  

4. Add the pineapple chunks, cinnamon, madeira and rum to the pan, and stir to incorporate. (Again, with punches, more is more, so if you’ve other spices to add to the cinnamon, e.g. cloves, allspice, star anise, cardamon, by all means throw them in too).

5. Here comes the fun part - but please be careful! Gently warm the pan until the vapours emerge and then set the mixture on fire. The safest way to do this is by setting a small spoonful of warm rum alight on a ladle and then pouring that in to ignite the rest. Stir the blue flaming liquid with the ladle for a couple of minutes until the sugar is dissolved and the pineapple has caramelised in places. Extinguish by turning off the heat and covering with the saucepan lid.

6. Now make the tea in a pot. Don’t let it stew!

7. Add most of the tea and the juice of two of the lemons. Taste for balance - it should be rich, warming and well-rounded. Add more lemon, tea, sugar or rum, depending on whether you think it needs more sourness, dilution, sweetness or kick. 

8. Allow it all to gently simmer for a spell.

9. It’s not a bad idea to strain it into a punch bowl (so as to avoid people drinking bits of clove, etc) but it’s not essential. Distribute among heatproof vessels, garnished with pineapple fronds, if you want to be fancy about it. If it’s a big party, I shouldn’t bother - let everyone help themselves. And also, make double because this will go fast.

10. If you prefer to serve it cold, that’s fine too. Wait for it to cool and then refrigerate the liquid. Freeze water in a rounded bowl so as to create one large, slow-melting piece of ice that you can place in the bowl just prior to serving.

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🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
🧑‍🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The full A-Z recipe archive is here. 
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.

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Ever so sorry, I meant to put this in my 🥳HOW TO HOST A COCKTAIL PARTY🥳 post yesterday but as a couple of you pointed out - I forgot. But actually, this was a fortuitous mistake as I feel this is a punch worth sharing and worth making.

I concocted the recipe for Waitrose magazine a couple of years back - and have made it at actual parties where it has gone down extremely well. It uses the chassis of Charles Dickens’s very own gin punch recipe - only I’ve added a rum spoiler, some pineapple rims and finished the seats in tea. Did that auto metaphor work? I don’t know to be honest, cars are not my thing. But hot punch very much is. The key, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, is the pounding of the citrus peel and sugar at the beginning - and in not using too much citrus juice. A punch should be mildly tart as opposed to sour.

You must do it properly at least once in your life, ideally with a lot of ceremony, like Mr Wilkins Micawber:

“I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity.” (Charles Dickens, David Copperfield)

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CABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

🌿Green Chartreuse
🍒 Maraschino
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🌷Cynar
🏝️ Falernum
🌵 Mezcal
🐂 Sherry
🧡 Aperol
🍌 Crème de Banane
🐻 Kümmel
🕊️ Bénédictine

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PLAYLIST

No fresh playlist this week, I’m afraid, but here is the glorious ongoing Spirits playlist - which I have found comes in particularly handy when hosting, since MOST of the tunes on here are relatively upbeat. Also, you can always scrape it into a fresh playlist.

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RUSSELL NORMAN

It was a real kick in the guts to learn this afternoon, that the restaurateur Russell Norman had died at the age of 57. Cardiac arrest, say the reports. Completely unexpected.

I didn’t know Russell well, but he was a man I admired a great deal (that’s a pic I took of him at the 10th anniversary of his Venetian-inspired restaurant, Polpo, in 2019). Polpo set all the trends worth setting when it opened back - not least giving London a taste for Campari, small plates, Italian regional cookery and, if I recall, tattoos (all of the staff were copiously inked before that was a thing). But all of his restaurants - Polpetto, Spuntino, Brutto - were/are just the sort of places you walk in and think, yes this is how it should be done. Stylish. Unpretentious. Delicious, yes, but with the proper emphasis on hospitality, Russell having begun his career working front-of-house rather than in kitchens. And I just liked the way that man carried himself - with tact, intelligence, elegance, humour and a slightly world-weary sigh that hinted that this business wasn’t nearly so easy as he made it look it. All the while giving every impression of being a decent human being. I’ll be raising a Campari Spritz to him this weekend.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING

My novel!

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, an account of a boy born in deep rural poverty in Virginia which I was only halfway through when I realised it was an adaptation of David Copperfield! It’s excellent. Truly. I’m yet to encounter the equivalent of the punch scene, alas.

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NEXT WEEK

I have invented a cocktail that I feel sure you will want to try. I’m quite excited about it.