ISSUE 43, CHRISTMAS, Part 4: Christmas Punch
Christmas Punch
The theory of punch is simple: combine as many drugs as one can in one bowl: alcohol, sucrose, fructose, spice, caffeine (note the ubiquitous presence of tea in classic 18th & early 19th century recipes), and carbonation. A note on the last: carbonation was considered a drug for a long period of time because persons noted that a carbonated mixer got one drunk quicker than a non-carbonated mixer. “The Champagne Effect.” They thought it was the chemistry—but the truth of the matter is that the gas in one’s stomach builds pressure that forces alcohol into the bloodstream more rapidly. Whenever that much mojo is concentrated in one place, there must be aids to assist ingestion: strong flavor, sweetness, fizziness.
Christmas in the South had its own tradition of punches. I am impressed by the uncharacteristic restraint of this New Orleans formula from the dawn of the twentieth century. It honors the holy nativity by leaving out the sugar. Now some might object that the honey in the two types of chartreuse obviates the need for granulated sugar . . . but this is quibbling.
Classic Christmas Punch always had champagne. But in many cases there might be an ingredient that imparted a potent red color. Before the rise in popularity of cranberry juice in the 1960s, cherry juice was the default. There was also a school of red wine punches that were rather heavy and “old school.” The 1950s and 1960s saw a spate of sauterne or champagne punches jammed with floating strawberries and/or marischino cherries with lashings of powdered sugar. A non-alcholic kid’s Christmas punch became popular in the 1960s as well made up of equal parts cranberry juice, apple juice, and ginger ale. The incorporaton of sodas into punches became a hallmark of the modern style tipples of the 1950s. Some of these punches were abominations, such as the Dr Pepper and Brandy mixture popular in parts of the Gulf Coast in the 1960s. Yet the 2020s have witnessed a revival of interest in that oldest of punch spirits-brandy-in modern holiday bowls. I await the renovation of the old New Orleans Christmas punch in new post-modern guise.