Last Friday at Elizabeth Farm we celebrated the connections between Australia’s oldest European house and India with a night of Bengal sugar – and rum punch!

The program was part of the 2018 Heritage Festival, and ran in conjunction with the exhibition Tales from the East: India and New South Wales, which is on now at Old Government House, Parramatta. After discussing imports of sugar, rum, textiles, spices and curios,  we settled in for a real taste of the 19th century: a rum punch!

Bombay Government Punch

The punch we made was a ‘Bombay Government Punch’, a late 17th century recipe that variously uses rum, brandy or arrack as the alcoholic base, sugar, lime juice and water or green tea. It can be drunk hot or cold. With ‘punch’ derived from the Hindi word for ‘5’, in the two variations we made we stuck to a traditional 5 ingredients:

Dark rum, brandy, sugar, citrus juice, and green tea.

Originally this recipe used arrack – made from the fermented sap of the toddy palm, and which has quite a kick. Not to be confused with the araks of the near East, which use grapes flavoured with aniseed, and which have a very different taste. (If you find a local distributor of Indonesian arrack can you let me know?). Not everyone has a punch bowl lying around, so you can use a large salad bowl as long as it will hold around 4 liters, and not splosh about when stirred. The toddy ladle though is an antique late Georgian ladle, with a handle of ‘lignum vitae’ – tree of life – which gave a very strong, flexible hardwood, ideal for ladles taking a beating in a night of heavy punch drinking.

While you can find Indian-made rums locally (we used Old Monk) it can be tricky, so if you’re substituting use a dark rum, not pale. Bengal rum was imported from the distillers in northern India to Sydney in barrels, and that aged the rum with a dark colour and richer flavour.

Take a dozen limes…

The first punch we made was very close to the original Bombay Government Punch recipe, and used lime juice with demerara sugar to give a rich, dark colour. Demerara sugar is a sugar that looks half way between between brown sugar and coffee crystals, and can be found in larger supermarkets and delicatessens.The tea we used was a green ‘gunpowder’ tea, named because the leaves are tightly rolled into a small ball shape that looks like gun shot. It was popular in the colonial period and is easily found in tea shops.

Rum and lime juice punch

Ingredients:
12 limes, juiced and sieved to remove seeds and pulp
1 1/2 to 2 cups demerara sugar
1 700 ml bottle  of dark rum
1 700ml bottle of VSOP brandy
2 liters of cold green tea. We used quite a strong mix!

Method:
Make a sugar syrup using the sugar and a cup or two of the tea. Allow to cool.
Add the strained lime juice and sugar syrup to the punch bowl;
Add the rum, and brandy, stirring as you go, then the add the cold green tea, and ice if you desire.

While this was good to go immediately, the various tastes continued to meld very nicely and was even better an hour later.

Take the juice of 8 lemons…

The authentic variation we then made still used rum and brandy, but used lemon juice and white sugar (which was rasped first), to create a caramel colour. Rasping is easy, you just need to wash or scrub the lemons thoroughly first to remove any wax added to make them glossy for sale. And when choosing, a rougher skinned lemon gives better results. Jacqui (the Cook) discussed rasping after a workshop back in 2013 in A Cordial Invitation. This variation used about 1 1/2 cups of sugar cubes (which for some reason seem to come as rectangular prisms these days).

Rubbing the ‘cubes’ on the lemons releases the oils which are absorbed into the sugar. It will crumble, so gather together the broken bits and crush with a mortar and pestle into a powder – called sherbet! The resulting powder is a pretty, pastel yellow colour:

Rum and lemon juice punch

Ingredients:
8 medium sized lemons, juiced
Equivalent of 1 cup sugar sugar cubes (make a guess)
1 700 ml bottle  of dark rum
1 700ml bottle of VSOP brandy
2 liters of cold green tea – but you may only use about 1 1/2

Method:
Make a sugar syrup using the sugar and a cup or two of the tea. Allow to cool.
Add the strained lemon juice and sugar syrup to the punch bowl;
Add the rum, and brandy, stirring as you go, then the add the cold green tea, and ice if you desire.

And here’s the thing about punch, and its an important thing! When I say “make a guess” I actually mean it; punch is a very personal taste, and as we were making it we decided to ease off on the green tea (using 1 1/2 liters instead) and sugar in the second mix. If you want it sweeter just add more sugar; less tart, use a bit less of the lemon juice. Vary the proportions of the rum and brandy if you like.

For decoration, its traditional to make curls of the peel of the citrus you use, and drape them over the sides of the bowl. You see these in views like Hogarth’s ‘Modern Midnight Conversation’.

As you can see, the punch was quite a success! To finish, here’s a reprieve of a drinking song from 1817:

If life’s like a lamp, then to make it shine brighter,
we’ll assign to Madeira, the post of lamp-lighter;
We’ll cherish the flame, with Oporto to Stout,
and drink Brandy-punch till we’re fairly burnt out.

Cheers!