Pineapple Clarified Milk Punch

December 23, 2020

Milk Punch has deep roots and can be traced all over history. It’s a great blend of alcohol, fruit, and sugar. Some recipes call for black or green tea, port wine or absinthe. We went through a range of recipe exploration, picking and choosing elements from various recipes. The recipe linked below is still fairly different from what we ended us using in our Clarified Milk Punch, and after making a batch of our own there’s still more things we would change. And this is a part of the fun about experimenting, it may not always be exactly what you want, but the adventure along the way was a damn good time! Clarified Milk Punch is a perfect beverage to make ahead of time, it’s a nice strong and fruity beverage to have on hand. Plus it lasts basically forever so there’s no need to worry about it going bad. Give yourself at least a day but ideally two days planning before you need this drink.

We followed this recipe for the most part, I didn’t want to have all of the additional flavoring ingredients added in. So we skipped the cinnamon, coriander, and anise. We left the absinthe in but would leave it out next time. Most if not all recipes for Clarified Milk Punch will have a few things in common, one of them being Batavia Arrack(a great article on exactly what the heck it is). It’s a sin to leave it out, but we couldn’t find any, so...let the sinning begin. I really like the concept for the above recipe because it incorporates pineapple which obviously means it’s a great vessel for a shrubbie with our Pineapple Lavender shrub!

Below is exactly how we made ours, I should note that there is a lot of leeway on the alcohols. You can get away with leaving out the cognac and just replace it with bourbon or more rum. Or leave out the bourbon and cognac and throw in a bit more rum. Heck, you don’t even really need to have three types of rum, you could get away with using one or two. As always the choice is up to you. We had a lot of fun making this bevvy and learned a few things for next time. And learning about clarifying liquids using milk, which sounds disgusting, but actually super cool(I know, we’re nerds). Also you can apply this process to any cocktail. You can take any single serving of drink and add hot milk with some citrus, strain it, and voila; you’ve got a new spin on an old favorite. The milk adds an amazing smoother mouthfeel and depth. We’d love to know if you try this out, we’ll be running some of our other shrubbies through this process you can be sure!

RECIPE

Clarified Milk Punch

Prep time 20 minutes

Ready in 2 days

Serves 1 drink

Ingredients

Clarified Milk Punch

8 Lemons
1 Pineapple
1 lb. Granulated sugar
8 oz. Mild Jamaican Rum
8 oz. Robust, Overproof Jamaican rum (such as Smith & Cross)
8 oz. Amber Puerto Rican rum
6 oz. Bourbon
8 oz. Cognac
4 oz. absinthe
1 oz. Peychaud’s bitters
8 oz. Brewed Sencha Green Tea
14 oz. Boiling Water
40 oz. Whole Milk

Clarified Milk Punch Shrubbie

4 oz Clarified Milk Punch
½ oz Pineapple Lavender Shrub
Optional fruit garnish

Preparation

Clarified Milk Punch

Zest all of the lemons and put them into a container large enough to hold all liquids.
Add 1 cup sugar to the lemon zests and muddle until the sugar looks somewhat like wet sand(this part sucks, have fun! The process is called oleo saccharum).
Peel and core pineapple, cut into roughly one inch pieces.
Boil water and make the green tea. Add all of the alcohol, the remaining sugar, the juice of six lemons, the tea, and the bitters to the oleo saccharum.
Add the boiling water and immediately cover with a lid to prevent evaporation. Let this mixture rest overnight.
The following day bring the milk to a boil(or strong simmer). Add the milk and juice of the last two lemons into the punch mixture at the same time. You should see small curds form immediately.
Let this sit for at least a half hour, but you can let it go longer if you’d like(we tried a full day).
After the rest time strain everything through a cheesecloth, a coffee filter, or fine mesh strainer.
The curds from the milk act as a filter by holding onto solids, so what we did was pour everything through a layered cheesecloth in a fine mesh strainer, and then did small batches at a time through a reusable coffee filter. Afterwards we had a nice clean and clear liquid.
Save the milk punch in a glass bottle or jar and pop it into the refrigerator. The Clarified Milk Punch will last for a long, long, loooong time!

Clarified Milk Punch Shrubbie

Add ice to a cocktail glass.
Pour Pineapple Lavender Shrub into the glass, adding the Clarified Milk Punch on top of that and stir.
No garnish necessary.
Be careful with this one because it’s strong and dangerously drinkable.