Milk Punch

In the world of mixology, there are only so many ways of preparing a drink. At the core, all cocktails involve the mixture of ingredients. Different methods of preparing, like stirring and shaking, change the way a drink can taste, or feel in the mouth. Beyond these two methods exist a handful of other preparation methods, one of which we will be taking a look at today.

Something you may not expect in many cocktails is milk, because of the fact that it will often curdle when mixed with acidic elements such as citrus juices, or vinegar. A process known as clarification, or milk punching, takes advantage of this phenomenon,. As a young craft bartender, I have always toyed with the idea of doing a milk punch since I learned about it, and I recently gave it a go. Milk punching has actually been around for hundreds of years, beginning sometime in the 1700’s, while clarified milk punches started to show up in the 1800’s. The process was the same, and done for the same reasons: to clarify drinks, soften alcohol, and make things shelf stable.

One of the cocktails featured on one of my menus a few months ago was essentially a spicy pineapple daiquiri. The original build involved a pineapple syrup thickened with xanthan gum, an agent that can be used to thicken fruit syrups while keeping the sugar content fairly low. Since I no longer had access to this syrup, I decided to do something with the leftover pre-mixed cocktail. Something interesting about milk punching is that it removes the perishable elements from cocktails, which is often citrus juice. When you batch cocktails, or premix them, it is advised to not include the citrus unless you are sure that you can sell all of what you have batched. Otherwise, the citrus goes bad in the drink and it becomes unusable.

Through milk punching, you can remove the organic matter from your cocktail and leave just the liquid and acid, and your cocktail will hold for much longer. Spirits themselves will last forever, but fruit syrups and juice will eventually go bad. By introducing milk to the cocktail, alongside acid, the milk solids that are separated through curdling bind to the perishable elements of the juice. Once everything has separated adequately, you can strain the milk solids, taking the juice particulate matter with it, and you are left with a clarified product. It’s “clarified” because the milk has bound to, and subsequently removed all particulate matter when it is strained off. The resulting texture is smooth and clear, and the burn of the alcohol is reduced. The acidity is also toned down, making milk punches sweet and tart, but not necessarily sour. The best part is that the drinks are premixed, and prediluted by the water left behind in juices, and the cocktail can be held in the freezer, since the high alcohol content will prevent it from freezing fully. What I have now is a delicious spicy pineapple daiquiri that I can simply pull out of the freezer door and pour, perfectly balanced and perfectly safe for consumption months after originally mixing it.

While the idea of adding milk to cocktails may seem off putting, especially when the process involves curdling the milk, the milk does not impart much flavor to the cocktail. That’s because the milk solids are strained off. The leftover fat is also strained off because it separated with the milk solids in the curdling/cooling/separation process. It’s essentially just whey, the leftover liquid from the milk, which is virtually tasteless and odorless. Besides, the other components of the cocktail will have strong enough flavors and smells to completely mask the whey. You won’t even notice it, but you will notice how smooth the drink is. I can’t provide a recipe for my exact milk punch, but I do know that I will be doing more in the future. With the right ratios, milk concentration, and straining materials, milk punching can be done fairly quickly. My session took about three days of straining since all I had was cream, which seems to have finer milk solid and stronger bonds, making it harder to curdle. That’s just a guess though. I also added my dairy to the acid, and not the other way around, which I learned would cause the milk to curdle much slower. Regardless, the end results are awesome and I am eager to get started on my next one.