Punch & The Wishnack Attack

it wasn't until recently i realized punch is an alcoholic drink. something about movies with high-schoolers spiking the punch had me convinced that punch was nothing but fruit juice. that, however, is fruit punch. ah-ha.

actual punch is most definitely alcoholic puts an entirely different spin on the phrase "punch-drunk love." if i didn't know otherwise, i'd expect it to be fancy talk for "beer-goggles."

anyway, i've done a bit of research on the history of punch because, quite frankly, i had the time.

first off, the stuff's been around since at least the seventeenth century and came from india. the name "punch" happened in the same sort of way my last name became "wishnack." essentially, there was a different word in a different language that english-speaking people couldn't pronounce and so they made up their own close-enough word and popularized it that way. the original name for punch was hindi for "five" because punch had five ingredients. and my original last name was polish for "sour-cherry picker" because my family was likely a team of alcoholic polish making cheap wine to survive.

that aside, barbadian [rum] punch boasts one of the oldest known punch recipes and it goes as follows: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak. its vagueness, i'm sure, can be taken in many directions but for the most part the mini-poem translates to: one part lime juice, two parts sweetener, three parts barbados rum, and four parts water. and a dash of nutmeg.

i don't know that there is a rule against swapping rum out for another alcohol-- so long as it remains strong-- but i don't think my lovely whiskey would mix well with all of that. though you never know and i will definitely try.

my goal is, and has been for a while, to create a wondrous mixed drink named "the wishnack attack." the first obstacle is trying to include maraska's cherry liqueur because it has a version of my last name on the bottle-- and, well come on. the second goal is to make the concoction so dangerous (yet delicious) that it maintains a reputation similar to that of a long island iced tea or the pan-galactic gargle blaster.

i've tried mixing that cherry liquer with so many things and i think the main problem i've run into is that i simply hate the taste of cherry and liquor-- it reminds me of cough syrup and i was never a fan of robo-tripping.

but with this new found knowledge of punch, i may have found a solution.

perhaps, after all, the wishnack attack was meant to be punch.

this was a sort of "thinking out loud" post. my apologies.