Poncha

the fisherman's drink of Madeira: cane spirit, honey, and lemon juice worked together with a ridged wooden stick until the honey dissolves, and drunk in one from a small glass

Origin: Portugal

From the journey of Sugar Cane.

Madeira grew sugar cane from the fourteen-twenties, and where there is cane there is eventually spirit. Aguardente de cana, distilled from fermented cane juice in the same manner as Brazilian cachaça, is the island's own liquor, and poncha is what Madeirans make with it. The name is a straightforward borrowing of the English punch, which is itself from the Hindi pānch, five, for the five components of the sailors' original; Madeira reduced it to three and made it a drink of the working day rather than the bowl. It belongs to the fishing villages of the north coast, above all Câmara de Lobos, where it was drunk before a night at sea and taken as a preventative against colds and flu, a claim still made with complete sincerity in every bar on the island. Its tool is as fixed as its recipe: the caralhinho, a ridged wooden muddler turned between the palms to whip the honey into the spirit, since honey will not otherwise combine with alcohol. It is served in a small tumbler and drunk fairly quickly, and it is considerably stronger than its sweetness suggests, which everyone who visits the island discovers exactly once.

Ingredients

Poncha

120 ml aguardente de cana (Madeiran cane spirit), or white cachaça
3 tbsp clear honey, preferably a mild wildflower honey
80 ml fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

To Serve

1 strip lemon peel, to garnish (optional)

Method

Put the honey and the lemon juice into a jug or a sturdy glass and work them together thoroughly with a wooden muddler until the honey has completely dissolved into the juice.
Add the cane spirit and work the mixture hard with the muddler, spinning the stick between your palms, for a good minute, until the whole is smooth, slightly cloudy, and lightly frothed.
Taste and adjust. It should be sharp first, sweet second, and unmistakably alcoholic; add lemon if it is cloying and honey if it is harsh.
Pour into small tumblers, without ice, and serve at once with a strip of lemon peel if you like.
For the regional variants, replace the lemon juice with fresh orange or with passion fruit pulp, or use half lemon and half orange for the version sold as poncha regional.

Notes

Madeiran aguardente de cana is sold by Portuguese grocers; white cachaça is the closest widely available substitute, being made in the same way from fermented cane juice, and an unaged agricole rum works too. Ordinary molasses-based rum makes a perfectly pleasant drink but a noticeably different one, heavier and less grassy. The traditional claim that poncha cures a cold rests on the lemon and the honey rather than the spirit, and the island's poncha de pescador, the fisherman's version, uses more spirit and less of everything else. A jug scales up easily for a party, but make it fresh: the lemon juice dulls within the hour and the emulsion separates, so if it must stand, work it again with the stick before pouring.

The Gastrographer

Name: Poncha
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: Portugal
Ingredients: 120 ml aguardente de cana (Madeiran cane spirit), or white cachaça; 3 tbsp clear honey, preferably a mild wildflower honey; 80 ml fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons); 1 strip lemon peel, to garnish (optional)

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control