The story of punch: invented in Asia as a beer substitute for British colonial sailors, loved by Charles Dickens, and back in style
- Punch is a mixture of spirit, sugar, citrus, water and spices, usually mixed in a bowl, and has been around since the 17th century
- Invented for British sailors, whose beer went bad on long voyages to Asia, it fell into and out of fashion in the UK, but is making a comeback
In the private room of The Diplomat, a bar in Hong Kong’s Central district, co-owner John Nugent deftly carves the rinds off three lemons and an orange and puts them in a container filled with about 200 grams of sugar.
Then he takes his long spoon and starts mixing it all together.
“You can kind of see it’s already starting to stick; what you want to see is the sugar clumping up. That means it’s already starting to extract from the peel.”
He’s making oleo saccharum, or sugar-citrus oil, that combined with various spirits, water and spices produces punch, an alcoholic drink that was invented in the 1600s and has made a comeback in recent years.
“There’s many different ways to make oleo [saccharum], maybe the most traditional is doing it in a punch bowl and then letting it sit for 15, 20 minutes, up to an hour,” explains Nugent. “I think the adage is the more you let it sit, the better it will be. It will draw out more of the oil.”
The Diplomat’s fish house punch uses oleo saccharum, cachaca – a Brazilian spirit made from distilled fermented sugar cane juice – cognac, black tea, kaffir and peach.