St. Cecilia’s Punch

REFLECTIVE OF THE ENGLISH (TEA), FRENCH (champagne and cognac), and West Indian (rum) influences on Carolina Lowcountry culture, St. Cecilia’s Punch was introduced at the St. Cecilia Musical Society in Charleston in the early eighteenth century and is still as popular today at elaborate weddings and social occasions as it was three hundred years ago. […]

Chatham Artillery Punch

REGIMENTAL PUNCHES HAVE BEEN CONCOCTED IN THE South for ceremonial events ever since The War Between the States, and none is more famous (or infamous) than Savannah’s superpotent Chatham Artillery Punch, which locals make a week in advance of any big social shindig. According to the city’s resident epicure and a good friend, Damon Lee […]

Wedding Champagne Punch

A WEDDING PUNCH IN THE SOUTH ALMOST automatically implies plenty of champagne in a large crystal punch bowl. As for the other ingredients, the sky’s the limit, including highly colorful ice rings made with fruit juices, crushed fruits, and even colas, as well as citrus rinds, mint leaves, whole berries, and maraschino cherries floating around […]

Graduation Fruit Punch

HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE GRADUATIONS IN THE South still warrant almost as much social attention as weddings and christenings, and no celebration is right without a bowl or big pitcher of fruit punch (alcoholic or nonalcoholic) when the time comes to make toasts. Gin, run, or vodka can be added to give this punch a […]

River Road Planter’s Punch

IT’S MY GUESS THAT MOST OF THE ELABORATE alcoholic punches that played such an important role at lavish social gatherings on the eighteenth-century rice plantations of the Carolina Lowcountry and on sugarcane and cotton plantations along the Mississippi River in Louisiana were imported from West Indian sugar plantations. Whatever their origin, the drink that evolved […]

Mint Julep

THE CLASSIC COCKTAIL OF KENTUCKY, TRADITIONALLY served virtually all over the state on the first Saturday in May at the running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, the mint julep actually predates the creation of its now prime ingredient, namely bourbon, which was not distilled until the late eighteenth century—not in Kentucky but in what […]

Ramos Gin Fizz

SECOND ONLY TO THE SAZERAC AS NEW ORLEANS’S most famous and unusual cocktail, the Ramos gin fizz was created by a bar owner named Henry C. Ramos in the late nineteenth century and eventually became a trademark drink at the city’s famous Roosevelt Hotel Bar. Religiously made with gin (never vodka, blessedly), some form of […]

Sazerac

OF ALL THE EXOTIC COCKTAILS ASSOCIATED WITH THE city of New Orleans, none has a more colorful history or enjoys greater popularity than the glorious Sazerac, made with whiskey, bar syrup, bitters, and an anise flavored liqueur. Originally made with a French brandy called Sazerac-du-Forge, the drink was probably created around 1850 at the Sazerac […]

Spiced Holiday Shrub

GROGS, NOGS, JULEPS, SHRUBS, BLUSHES, SOURS, coolers—nothing betrays the South’s rich and diverse ethnic heritage like the array of intriguing names applied to many of our alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. A shrub is always made with some form of berry or berry juice and can be hot or cold, plain or spiced, sweet or slightly […]

Syllabub

TRACED BACK TO A THICK, FROTHY CONCOCTION served in Elizabethan England, the term syllabub derives from sille (a French wine) and bub (a bubbling drink) and describes one of the South’s most distinctive beverages/desserts (depending on its consistency). I remember watching my Georgian grandmother beat liquidy syllabub with a whisk for one of her afternoon […]