What is a punch? And what is Swedish Punsch?In the world of mixology, punch usually refers to a hot drink or a drink served in a big bowl. But for Swedish people it becomes something completely different when you add an "s."
While it's not entirely clear where the word comes from, punsch may be related to puncheons, the wooden barrels used for transporting arrak, or to the word pancha -- "five" in Hindi -- which some relate to the classic punsch ingredients: arrak, lemon, water, sugar and tea.
When the Swedish East Indian Trade Company started to import goods to Sweden, one of the items, from Indonesia, was Batavia arrak -- a distillation of molasses and rice. The first shipment landed in Sweden in 1733.
For a while, the wealthy mixed their own punsch, but soon enough various pre-mixed brands came on the market. By the mid 1800s it was very fashionable to drink Swedish Punsch but already most people were drinking it cold rather than warm (as it tended to be at first).
New labels and varieties popped up all the time for all kinds of festivities: Hunting Punsch, Elevator Punsch (when the first public elevator was opened in Stockholm) Telephone Punsch, or Caloric Punsch (when John Ericsson invented the hot air machine) -- to name just a few. There was a Sport Punsch and even a Car Punsch -- to take along on scenic drives! -- something we thankfully find unthinkable today.
Alas, there are only a few labels left: Flaggpunsch (the punsch of the Swedish flag) is the top seller. It has an alcoholic strength of 26%, a sugar content of about 30 % and is matured on oak casks.
The Swedish Punsch has traditionally been drunk in small cups with a holder that lies on a bed of ice, sometimes on a “punsch veranda." There are even special punsch songs to go with it.
Drinking punsch is not as popular as it used to be, but the tradition lives on -- mostly among students, around universities, and among military officers. It is drunk either warm (but then only with yellow pea soup on Thursdays), or cold, with coffee.
There are of course also some classic cocktails made with Swedish punsch:
DOCTOR.
1 part Lemon Juice
1 part Plymouth Gin
1 part Swedish Punsch
Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in the freezer. Pour lemon juice, Plymouth Gin and Swedish punsch into a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes and shake it until the shaker is very cold. Empty the cocktail glass. Strain the drink into the cocktail glass.
MELBA.
3 parts Cruzan Light Rum
1 part Lemon Juice
3 parts Swedish Punch
2 dashes Grenadine
2 dashes Pastis
Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in the freezer. Pour Cruzan light rum, lemon juice and Swedish punsch into a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes and shake it until the shaker is very cold. Empty the cocktail glass. Strain the drink into the cocktail glass.
DIKI-DIKI.
1 part Grape Juice
1 part Plymouth Gin
1 part Swedish Punch
Chill a cocktail glass with ice or in the freezer. Pour grape juice, Plymouth Gin and Swedish punsch into a shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes and shake it until the shaker is very cold. Empty the cocktail glass. Strain the drink into the cocktail glass.
GULDKANT or GOLDEN EDGE in English.
Equal parts Swedish Punsch and Cognac layered in a brandy snifter.
