Being from Charleston, S.C., this recipe naturally caught my eye when I spied it in the Food and Wine section of the Financial Times. The recipe, from Heritage by Sean Brock, is for a lost and forgotten punch from a lost and forgotten military unit – the Charleston Light Dragoons, a “military” unit in the sense that they drilled and wore snappy uniforms. Except for a brief, and it seems, ill-fated stretch during the Civil War, they were mostly an eating and marching society that would assemble for the sake of conviviality.
Punch, the original party drink, was brought back to England from India in the 17th century by sailors and employees of the British East India Trading Company. The word itself is borrowed from the Hindi language and means five – a punch is not just a big cocktail served in a bowl, but a balance of five flavors – strong, weak, bitter, sour and sweet. The five flavors as well as the distinctive mix of English, West Indian, French and West African influences found in low-country cuisine are all represented in the ingredients’ list for this drink.
In any case, Roderick Weaver, the head bartender at Husk, a very popular restaurant in Charleston, somehow found the recipe and revived it in 2011, bless him, and Sean Brock, the owner of Husk, included it in his book. I stumbled upon a controversy as to the contents of the originally recipe – Charleston Preservation society versus somebody’s grandfather’s recipe – which you can read about it here* or never mind all that and just mix up the Husk version and enjoy. Its’ rather good.
The Husk recipe as printed in the FT and offered below serves twenty. I generally don’t have a Dragoon coming over for drinks, just a few of the girls, so when I make it, I cut the recipe down. Below, in parentheses, are the more ladylike proportions that should serve 6 quite happily.
Ingredients
Instructions
