Making Milk Punch
A little while back, I ordered a copy of David Wondrich’s Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as I discovered when making Mary Rockett’s Milk Punch to great success. Now that I’m making my second batch, I figured I’d share the process and answer some questions that I’ve gotten about the punch. If you’re looking to make your own punch, I’d definitely recommend grabbing a copy of the book.
Let’s get started!
The Questions
There are three questions I usually get about milk punch. The first two are about what’s in milk punch and how it’s made, which are answered later on. The last one is always asking why the punch is so clear, especially since it contains milk.
The answer relates to the milk curds. Adding milk to something acidic (like lemons) causes the milk to curdle. This separates the milk solids (curds) from the rest of the milk (milk whey). As we’ll see, these curds are strained out leaving us with just the milk whey. Milk whey is a lot more translucent, which is why the punch ends up having a clear, pale yellow color.
I also looked a bit into nutrition (but be warned, I’m not a dietitian). Apparently, casein proteins are part of the milk curd and so they’re strained out. Whey protein tends to be low in lactose, but liquid whey still has plenty of lactose in it. So, if you’re allergic to dairy because of casein you might be able to drink milk punch. Unfortunately, if you’re allergic to the whey or if you’re lactose-intolerant you’re out of luck.
The Recipe
To make Milk Punch. Infuse the rinds of 8 Lemons in a Gallon of Brandy 48 hours then add 5 Quarts of Water and 2 pounds of Loaf Sugar then Squize the Juices of all the lemons to these Ingredients add 2 Quarts of new milk Scald hot stirring the whole till it crudles [sic] grate in 2 Nutmegs let the whole infuse 1 Hour then refine through a flannel Bag.
This is the original recipe, coming from A Memoir of Mrs. Behn (see footnote 56), which in turn comes from a recipe book written by Mary Rockett in 1711. Wondrich recommends infusing for 24 hours and to just use a gallon of water; otherwise, the recipe remains the same.
I used Pierre Ferrand Ambre and demerara sugar. I really enjoyed my first batch (which used the same ingredients) but I’m sure that the Pierre Ferrand could also be replaced with something cheaper. Demerara sugar was surprisingly difficult to find, although it will probably be cheaper if you buy it locally rather than from Amazon. It turns out that the Whole Foods near me carries it, but even then it sells pretty fast. The milk should be whole milk.
The Equipment
You don’t need anything too fancy, although I did buy a siphon and some mesh bags for my second batch. Here’s everything I used:
- large pots or mixing bowls (should be able to comfortably hold a gallon of liquid)
- sauce pan (large enough to boil the milk)
- mixing bowls
- citrus juicer
- two 5-gallon plastic food buckets
- something to cover the buckets (I used foil)
- strainer
- fine mesh bags (I used these)
- siphon
- nutmeg grater
I got my food buckets from Lowe’s, but I hear that you can get used buckets from restaurants (burger joints or pastry places like Panera). You’ll have to clean them though; they’re used to ship pickles or frosting.
The Process
Everything here is as follows from the recipe.
At this point, wait for at least 24 hours. You should probably refrigerate the peeled lemons, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
After adding the water, sugar, and lemon juice, make sure to stir and mix everything up. You want to dissolve most of the sugar.
While heating your milk, I’d recommend grating the nutmeg. It’ll take a few minutes for the milk to heat up anyway. But make sure to keep an eye on the milk — I wasn’t watching and my milk bubbled up and overflowed. :(
At this point, let everything stand for an hour. Then, transfer everything to the second bucket while straining out the milk curds.
Although the nut bags say that they’re fine enough that you can squeeze them, I wouldn’t recommend it. The curds can be rather small. Instead, just let all the liquid drip out from the bags. I just let everything sit for about half an hour. I also found that having several mesh bags was quite useful, as I didn’t have to worry about filling everything into just one bag.
I find the milk curds to be rather upsetting to look at, not to mention touch. Good thing they get thrown out!
Although it looks pretty clear in this photo, there’s actually still a fair amount of sediment still in the punch. It’s just mostly settled towards the bottom. I cleaned the first 5-gallon bucket and the mesh bags, then strained a second time. The second time through I actually nested two of the mesh bags to serve as a double strainer.
You can see here that there’s actually still some fine sediment particles still in the punch. The first time I made milk punch I spent the next two weeks repeatedly straining, to some avail. This time around I just let the sediment settle then siphoned the clear punch out. The sediment needs to settle first, so cover everything up and stick it in the fridge.
It actually took a few days before I siphoned the punch, as I was waiting for my siphon tubing to arrive in the mail. This is the result after siphoning and bottling everything:
The bottles can be stored at cellar temperatures, but I just keep mine in the fridge.
Make sure the punch is thoroughly chilled before serving it! As with all his punches, Wondrich recommends serving in small serving sizes. I use 3 ounce plastic cups for my parties. It sounds small, but it actually turns out to be a really good size. The punch is really smooth and easy to drink, but it’s also quite strong.
