Punch, the East India trade, Pirates and a dash more Lime Juice

This started as part of the blog on lime juice but is now one of two spin-offs. The lime juice alone was complicated enough without the origins of Punch and Cocktails. Lime juice is still very much a part of this story.

The Origins of Punch 

Scholars have generally believed that the likeliest derivation of the word "punch" as an alcoholic drink is from the Hindi word पंज panch or panj, meaning five. Many of the early descriptions of punch had five ingredients.

Of course the native word for five would have been familiar to the traders and other employees of the British East India Company.

The Punjab region was named for its five rivers, though from Persian rather than Hindi.

The panchamrita is the five-fold divine nectar used as an offering to the gods during Hindu pujas. It often consists of honey, sugarcane juice, cow's milk, yoghurt and ghee. Sometimes it has other ingredients, occasionally more than five.

The famous Indian five-spice powder is called paanch masaala or panch phoran. Not to be confused with the Chinese five-spice powder wŭ xiāng.

Another use of the word panch is in panchadhatu or panchaloha, the alloy of five metals used in India for sacred statues. One version is made with gold, silver, copper, zinc and iron. The five metals represent the five Hindu great elements. The word punch or panch in Anglo-Indian usage denoted a panchayat or local council of five members.

Porcelain Punch Bowl, c. 1770. Worcester Porcelain Factory 

The Cleveland Museum of Art

More after the break.

The Origin of the Cocktail

I started this as part of the blogs about lime-juice and punch but it seemed a little out of place, so I am giving it a page for itself.

Organic Seville or bitter oranges (Citrus aurantium) from Mairena del Alcor, Province of Sevilla. Being sold in Unicorn Grocery on the 8th of March 2019. Probably the last of this season. Earlier consignments were bigger, darker orange and more perfect.

Apart from all the variations of punch, other popular alcoholic concoctions of the 17th century included sangaree (sangría), rosa solis and flip. Along with punch, these were the precursors to the rum toddy, rum shrub (though shrub could be used to make punch), rum sour, brandy fix, gin twist, sling, cobbler, julep, rattle-snake, stone-fence, swizzle and cocktail of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

There are many theories about the origin of the word cocktail for a mixed alcoholic drink. This meaning of the word cocktail was first recorded in 1798. I have my own theory from reading about far too many variations of the descendants of punch.