Orgeat Punch, Brandy, Orgeat and Lemon from 1887
Reader ratingsBrandy, almond orgeat syrup and half a lemon shaken with a tumbler of shaved ice, topped with berries and a dash of port: the single-glass Orgeat Punch of Jerry Thomas’s 1887 bar guide.
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
- Prep
- Total
Orgeat punch over shaved ice with a dash of port, berries and a straw, beside half a lemon and a bottle of almond syrup.
The story behind the recipe
Orgeat Punch is a single glass of brandy sweetened with almond syrup and sharpened with half a lemon, shaken with a tumbler full of shaved ice. It appears in the 1887 Bar-Tender’s Guide, the edition of Jerry Thomas’s book published two years after his death, and it is a punch for one: no bowl, no ladle, just the large bar glass, a straw and “Port wine on top.”
A page of punches by the glass
The punches around it in the 1887 book are built the same way, one glass at a time, in a tumbler. On the same page as the Orgeat Punch, Thomas gives a Vanilla Punch of brandy, sugar and lemon with a few drops of vanilla extract, and notes that it “should be imbibed through a glass tube or straw.” A Sherry Punch comes before it and a Curaçoa Punch and a Roman Punch after, the last two also finished with fruit and, for the Roman, a dash of port.
The almond is what sets this one apart. Orgeat had begun as an almond milk thinned with water, a drink in its own right, and by Thomas’s day it came as a syrup to be measured by the spoonful: “1½ table-spoonful of orgeat syrup” here, to “1½ wine-glass of brandy.” Its alcohol-free sister in the same book, Orgeat Lemonade, actually takes more of the syrup and swaps the brandy for water.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
This is a strong drink. A wine-glass in Thomas’s day held 2 fluid ounces, so a wine-glass and a half is 3 fl oz of brandy, about two US standard drinks. With the ice that melts in the shaking, the glass comes to about 18% alcohol by our arithmetic, close to a fortified wine. We keep his measure; pour 2 fl oz if you want a lighter glass. For the syrup, use the Orgeat Syrup of a 1920 drinks book, made without bitter almonds, or a good bought one. Thomas leaves the port to a “dash”; a teaspoon of ruby port is our measure. How Thomas and the bartenders after him came to write the drinks down is told in The Bartenders Who Wrote Down the Classic Cocktails.
Orgeat Punch.
(Use large bar-glass.)
Take 1½ table-spoonful of orgeat syrup.
1½ wine-glass of brandy.
Juice of half a lemon.
Fill the tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, ornament with berries in season, and dash Port wine on top. Serve with a straw.
Recipe makes: 1 drink
Ingredients
My drinksFor 1 drink. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 drink.
- Orgeat syrup1 1/2 tbsp
- Brandy3 fl oz
- Fresh lemon juice (1/2 lemon)1 1/2 tbsp
- Shaved or finely crushed ice1 1/2 cups
- A few berries in season, to finish
- Ruby port, to finish1 tsp
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 1/2 tbsp orgeat syrup
- 3 fl oz brandy
- 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
- 1 1/2 cups shaved or finely crushed ice
- a few berries in season, to finish
- 1 tsp ruby port, to finish
Equipment
Citrus juicer
Cocktail shaker
Large tumbler, about 12 fl oz
Straw
Instructions
Put the orgeat syrup, the brandy and the fresh lemon juice in a shaker.
Add the shaved or finely crushed ice, close the shaker and shake well for about 10 seconds.
Pour everything, ice and all, into a large tumbler.
Drop a few berries in season on top, then pour the ruby port gently over the surface so it sits on top. Serve it with a straw.
Nutrition
300calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 drink
Roughly estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof brandy, lemon juice and port, and our orgeat syrup recipe, for one drink.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is one drink, and a strong one. Shake no more than two at a time.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Changes from the source: Thomas gives no size for the large bar glass; we read it as a 12-ounce tumbler, which takes about 1 1/2 cups of shaved ice. The teaspoon of port is our reading of his “dash.” Everything else is as he wrote it.
The orgeat syrup contains tree nuts. Shake the bottle before you measure it, since the almond oil rises.
For the alcohol-free glass, make the Orgeat Lemonade from the same book.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Jerry Thomas, The Bar-Tender’s Guide; or, How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1887), “Orgeat Punch,” pp. 71–72
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink family
- Punches & Cups
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1880s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Summer