I searched high and low in search of another recipe going by the name Bombay Punch and turned up empty handed. (see note below for update)
Tonight’s Mr. Boston recipe appears to be original to this 1935 book we’ve been blogging about over the last couple months. That in and of itself is rather rare, many the other drinks in the book have been direct reprints or recipes inspired by older books.
Being just Ryan and I, it seemed rather funny to mix the Bombay Punch as instructed. I don’t think it would be good to try and test out nearly 9 quarts of booze between two people. As such, this cocktail needed some scaling to accomplish.
There are 32 ounces per one liquid quart. That mean’s Mr. Boston’s wanted me to combine 64 ounces of Apricot Brandy and Sherry (32 ounces each), 128 ounces of Champagne (a little more than 5 bottles at 750 ML), 4 ounces of Maraschino, another 4 ounces of Orange Curacao and don’t forget 64 ounces of carbonated water.
Not only is that a ridiculous amount of hooch but it would cost a fortune to make! If the average Mr. Boston’s cocktail serving is 3 ounces, this punch would garner 88 cocktails!!! Now that is a ridiculously huge cocktail recipe ?
We don’t have the opportunity to entertain such a large group of people often so, I never invested in the “proper” punch bowl set. Thankfully, we have an amazing antique mall nearby.
This beautiful antique punch bowl set appears to have the same grape detail as our found cup does.
Based on the number of vintage punch bowl sets at the market, I’d say the drink has lost some of its popularity over the years. It could be that no one wants to make room to store those huge crystal dishes anymore! Seriously, some of those bad boys would eat an entire cabinet in my dinky kitchen.
Tucked away in a booth way in the back I stumbled onto this adorable punch cup.
I have no idea what it’s age is but I fell in love with the opalescent finish. It might be carnival glass which could put it between 1908 and 1925. Though for the sweet price of $1.75 it is likely a reproduction.
The glass only holds 4 ounces of liquid and this recipe fills it to the brim…
1/2 ounce Apricot Brandy
1/2 ounce Sherry
1/3 teaspoon Maraschino liqueur
1/3 teaspoon Orange Curacao
2 ounces Champagne
1 ounce Carbonated H2O (more or less ;-))
The first order of business was choosing the appropriate Sherry. To taste the cream Sherry seemed to be a better fit. It was sweeter and seemed to have more flavor than the dry bottle we have. Ryan wondered if our dry version had gone but I think it tastes about the same as when we opened it.
For Champagne, I decided to chill the Barefoot Bubby Pinot Grigio selection last night. I didn’t know what to expect from a sparkling Pinot and was excited to try it out.
I really enjoyed the first sip I had of the Champagne. I’m personally not a huge fan of dry Brut style bubbly and this was sweet like a sparkling Moscato.
We mixed up the drink with our cream Sherry and took our nightly cocktail pictures for Instagram.
I thought the Sherry was way too heavy for the drink.
A test was in order, and so the drink was re-prepared with the dry Sherry. In my opinion that version yielded a better result. Ryan thought that it made the drink boring. Goes to show their is no accounting for taste 🙂