To Serve Man
Rum

Planter's Punch

Glass
Collins

The rhyming Jamaican rum-punch formula in template form, one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak.

rum jamaican classic pre-tiki punch shaken lime
Scale
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Ingredients

  • fresh lime juice (1 oz)
  • rich Demerara syrup (0.5 oz)
  • grenadine (0.25 oz)
  • Angostura bitters (2 dashes)
  • aged Jamaican rum (2 oz)
  • soda water (1 oz)
  • nutmeg (1 pinch)
  • orange wheel (1)
  • maraschino cherry (1)

Instructions

  1. In a shaker combine fresh lime juice, rich Demerara syrup, grenadine, Angostura bitters, and aged Jamaican rum.
  2. Shake briefly with ice and strain into a collins glass filled with crushed ice.
  3. Top with a splash of soda water.
  1. Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg, an orange wheel, and a maraschino cherry.

Sources

  1. Curtis, And a Bottle of Rum (2006), planter's-punch chapter, traces the "one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak" rhyming-template formula through 19th-century West Indian punch tradition and its codification at Jamaican plantation houses and hotels. ↩
  2. "Myrtle Bank Special / Rum Punch." Difford's Guide. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/2513/myrtle-bank-special-rum-punch (accessed 2026-05-03), Difford's Myrtle Bank Special (a cherry-brandy variant) is cited here as a historical Myrtle Bank pointer rather than as the source of this file's stripped-down measurement bill, which follows the Curtis rhyming template 1. ↩
  3. Berry, Potions of the Caribbean (2014), Planter's Punch / Myrtle Bank chapters, documents the Myrtle Bank Hotel (Kingston) as the single-serve cocktail-form codifier and traces the link to Donn Beach's catalog (the Zombie's structural DNA). ↩