Planter's Punch - The Original Tiki Drink

Over on ProfessorCocktail.com, I wrote an essay on Planter's Punch, including my preferred recipe. I discuss some of the history of the drink, and the many variations that have popped up over the years.

For those who just want the recipe, here it is:

Planter's Punch

2 oz Rum
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1 oz Grenadine
1 tbsp Sugar Cane Syrup
1/2 oz 151 Rum (optional)

Shake all the ingredients (except 151 Rum) with ice until well-chilled. Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass, or use something pretty if you've got it. Float the 151 Rum on top.

Enjoy!

as a drinker, I don't personally consider this to be a tiki drink.

i'll try your recipe sometime, it sounds similar to a navy grog.

here's link to thread where some of us batted around a few planter's punch recipes last year:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=39974&forum=10&hilite=planter

I looked up Jeff Berry's recipe for Navy Grog and you're right -- very similar. Good call.

Since the Planter's Punch predates the Tiki era, I was stretching a point to call it the "original" Tiki drink. If we're talking Tiki as a movement, the Planter's Punch would probably be better termed an ancestor. But I was thinking of it more in the spirit of Tiki, where I think it definitely lies.

Like thePorpoise, I have never thought of Planter's Punch as a tiki drink. It is a Caribbean coctail that belongs with the likes of the Tom Collins, the Cuba Libre, and the original spiced rum of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, bumbo.

Interesting. What would you say makes it fundamentally different from a Tiki drink?

Thanks to Donn Beach, Planter's Punch is the father of many Tiki Drinks.

An excerpt from an article with Jeff Berry.

"Donn was exposed to the rum-based Planter’s Punch at the Myrtle Bank Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. It’s a drink that’s based on a more than 100-year-old axiom: One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak. “Donn took this bit of rhyme as his foundation for the 70 drinks on his menu—the sour would be lime, the sweet would be sugar, the strong would be rum, and the weak would be water,”

Full article here:
http://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/02/drink-in-paradise.html

I wholeheartedly agree with Hakalugi. The Planter's Punch may pre-date tiki (by hundreds of years, actually), but it is the inspiration and foundation of many of Donn Beach's cocktails, and therefore virtually all tiki drinks. Jeff Berry has a really great seminar on the history of Donn Beach, Don The Beachcomber, and the cocktails that were inspired by Donn's travels throughout the Caribbean, South Pacific, and elsewhere. A lot of this is in Jeff's book Sippin' Safari, too, which is a great read!

It was clearly a model that he tweaked for the Zombie:

One of sour, two of sweet, four of strong...

:lol:

This is starting to sound more like the drinks I usually make.