Punch #3: Tea Rum Port Punch, Attempt 2

Last week's punch was a success for making punch, but less so for the flavor, which was kind of boring. SO, I decided to change things up a bit.

First,  I wanted a richer oleo saccrum. So I made orange oleo with demerara sugar.

Second, I wanted more bite. So I upped the rhum agricole in the recipe.

Finally, I changed up the tea a bit. I wanted more warmth, chocolate, and ginger, and the Chocolate Chai tea had all of that, along with a nice black tea base.

2 cups Lemonlilly Chocolate-Chai Tea

1 cup Havana Club Anejo Reserva

.5 Cup Taylor Fladgate Late Bottled Vintage Port 2011

.5 Cup Overproof Rhum agricole from Guadaloupe (I wanted to bring the proof back up and add some bite to it; use Wray & Nephew if you don't have, y'know, random bottles of rhum agricole you want to use up)

8d angostura bitters (since I’m not doing a pre-infusion of spices, I wanted some allspice warmth)

4oz (by weight) Orange Coconut Oleo-saccrum

3.5oz Orange Juice

.5oz Lime juice

1 cup milk

Here's the tail end of the first straining. You can see how much color the curds have taken from the port in the base.

This batch ended up with a nice, dark ruby color and much more what I expected flavor-wise. It's important, I feel, to use intense flavors in your punch base, because the milk washing process strips some of those phenolic compounds away. Using a harsh rhum agricole worked out extremely well for me, as it meant you got a reminder that this was a punch rather than tasting like a smooth glass of spicy kool-ade. (And, as I mentioned, Wray&Nephew Overproof has a similar profile, so I suggest adding a few ounces of that to a strong rum punch if you want the punch to taste and smell a bit like rum, as rum tends to incorporate pretty fully into milk punches otherwise.)