cocktail review no. 63 - Planter's Punch

Tropical drinks are a rum do.

A wealth of visual imagery and context and light and sound and feeling and fury lie bound up in those two words.

Most people immediately think of tiki bars, and rum bars, and tropical bars, and beach bars, and barbecues and summer nights and sambas and limbos and rumbas and tangos and lambadas when you say "tropical drink."

They think of tattooed women caked with makeup, drinking way too much and wearing way too little, easy prey. "Oh, I can't taste the alcohol, it's fair game for me!"

They think of paper umbrellas, and friends staggering on the street, and loud clubs, and garnishes almost too gaudy to be edible, pineapples and cherries and pomegranates and God knows what else. "For Christ's sake, where's the booze? This tastes like fruit juice!"

They think of outlandish names, monikers fit for the Sheriff of Nottingham, Vlad the Impaler, Robespierre, Ceauşescu, Shiro Ishii: the Zombie, the Scorpion, the Tidal Wave, the Green-Tailed Dragon of the Maroon Morning.

Maybe that last one's a stretch, but it's imposing regardless.

There are a few hardy folks, however, who don't subscribe to the trendy, hip, club-going, bar-hopping, street-puking, alley-humping "in-crowd." Some of us out here in the ether still dream of seaplanes, hammocks, palm fronds, zebra stripes, native girls, ukeleles, volcanoes, howdahs, bungalows and sprawling plantations while we sip tropical drinks.

I do, anyway.

And this drink, Planter's Punch, made every daydream I'd ever had about a voyage to the South Seas or a passage to India or a beach house in Cuba come galloping to the forefront.

• 1 ounce dark rum
• 1 ounce light rum
• ½ ounce orange Curaçao 
• 2 ounces fresh orange juice
• 2 ounces pineapple juice
• ¼ ounce fresh lime juice
• ½ ounce simple syrup
• dash of grenadine
• dash of Angostura bitters

Shake all ingredients well with ice and strain into a glass. Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry. Top with club soda.

I need to tell you about a little book I found at Anthropologie.

The book, the acquisition of which cost me fifty-three U.S. dollars, is the jewel of my bartender's collection.

It's called Vintage Cocktails.

Part of Assouline's line on travel and culture and fine dining, the book features photography by Laziz Hamani, who is better known for his pictures of Louis Vuitton handbags than alcoholic drinks.

That should give you some idea about how lush the photography is.

As Brian Van Flandern explains in the introduction:

"The word vintage often implies antique, a relic from the past that has come back into vogue. Not to be confused with the classic cocktail, the vintage cocktail conjures images of specific places in time when a particular cocktail gained global popularity. Many of the recipes featured in [Vintage Cocktails] survived the devastating years of Prohibition (1920-1933) while others, like the Brandy Crusta (created in New Orleans in 1852), boast legacies of over a century."

What we have in this book is a collection of cocktails that are very old, mostly unheard of these days, known to only a few old-fashioned drink-meisters, mentioned frequently in black-and-white films, sometimes seen on those giant prints that Red Robin loves to put up on its walls. Nobody drinks this stuff anymore, but once you taste it, you may never go back to your Scooby Snacks and Blow Jobs. These names conjure up images of dimly-lit mahogany bars, and brightly lit ballrooms, and yachts, and verandas, and red carpet and movie stars and black-tie affairs.

The Sidecar.

The Brandy Flip.

The Gin Mule.

The Dry Martini.

The French 75.

The Sazerac.

The Irish Coffee.

The Stinger.

The Sloe Gin Fizz.

The Pousse-Café.

The Hemingway Daiquiri.

The White Russian.

Between the Sheets.

Pimm's Cup.

And all the rest of it. You can just see a bunch of Hollywood's greats lounging around in tuxedos, sipping on these masterpieces. (And indeed, there is a picture in the front pages of Vintage Cocktails showing Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and James Stewart, tuxedo-clad, enjoying a "drink and a joke" at a New Year's Eve party in Beverly Hills.

Wowzer.

So these drinks (with a few exceptions) have a long, epic history, steeped in tradition and class, endowed with unimpeachable reputations, crafted from the finest ingredients, and savored by some rather legendary human beings.

One of these is—you guessed it—Planter's Punch.

And it has earned its place on the list of vintage (and classic) cocktails.

I've had tropical drinks before. Lots. I like 'em. Makes me feel a little closer to my idols (Ernest Hemingway and Bartholomew Roberts come to mind). But I've never had one like Planter's Punch. It is a doozy. For once, the pineapple juice does not overpower or undermine. It smoothly backs up the orange juice and complements the sour kick of the lime, while its best qualities are brought out by the simple syrup. The simple mix of light and dark rum creates both a smoky undertone and a sweetly alcoholic finish which entrances nostrils and taste buds alike. (Some recipes for Planter's Punch include three or four kinds of rum; this is, I believe, an unnecessary and wasteful practice.) The bitters balance out what would otherwise be overwhelming sweetness. The grenadine provides both a textural solidarity and a slight cherry undertone that creates, in my opinion, the perfect tropical flavor. Many tropical drinks taste foully or overwhelmingly of pineapple; some are sickly sweet; others dilute the booze to fantastic degrees. The Planter's Punch does none of this. The addition of orange juice and orange Curaçao provides just the right amount of orange overtone (supplemented by the lime) without submitting to or adulterating the other sensations.

Sorry, I'm gushing.

Putting it bluntly, I think I've found my favorite tropical cocktail.

But, as always, don't take my word for it.