have a very special guest to celebrate . . . one of many special

guests, but we're going to celebrate the 1-Year anniversary of Hilah

Cooking which is coming upon us rapidly. He's going to show me how to

make some punch, because I love punch and it's a great party drink.

Every time I have a party, I'm always like, "I want to make some

punch." Then I'm like, "What goes in this punch?" and then I end up

making lemonade with some vodka in it. That's not really very

creative. To help me out with that, I've got the guy from the famous

Tipsy Texan blogger. His name is David Allen, everybody. Hey, you're

here.

David: What's going on?

Hilah: What's up? Look, it's David.

David: Happy birthday.

Hilah: Thank you.

David: That's pretty rad. You seem a lot more mature than 1-year-old.

Not a lot but . . .

Hilah: I have a syndrome where I grow extra fast. By next year I'll be

80.

David: You look great for a 1-year-old.

Hilah: Thanks. You're going to show us how to make some punch?

David: Punch. Where's the trashcan? Do you have a trashcan?

Hilah: Right there.

David: Not trashcan punch, traditional classic punch.

Hilah: Classy punch.

David: Classic classy punch. Before there was cocktails, before people

drank martinis, there was punch.

Hilah: That was like the original . . .

David: It goes back a couple centuries or two.

Hilah: Thanks for sharing.

David: Group activity. Communal drinking.

Hilah: Let's have a group activity with just me and you.

David: That would be hot. That would be fun.

Hilah: Awesome. Let's do it.

David: I'm going to jump into the punch bowl.

Hilah: We have a bowl of sugar, some lemons, and a small baseball bat.

What's going on here?

David: It's also called a muddler.

Hilah: Got it.

David: The key thing to remember when making punch is that ingredients

should be first quality. If you don't love your friends and family

enough to buy good ingredients, you just shouldn't have them over,

really

Hilah: That's a good point. That's a good lesson for everything.

David: Don't invite them over. Tell them to stay home. If you're going

to serve crap, just tell them to stay home. If we're serving quality,

we're going to start . . . the first ingredient, I guess, in our punch

is going to be an oil-infused sugar that the classical punch . . .

people might have called an oleo saccharum. That's a pretty big word

for punch, isn't it?

Hilah: That means oil and sugar.

David: Like oil sugar.

Hilah: Is that Greek, though?

David: I think it's . . . David Wonderich, the punch historian, calls

it dog Latin. What we're going to do is take the peels off of the

lemon. What we want is just . . . we just that yellow outside. That's

where the fancy oils, that's where the zest is. Leave as much of the

white pith on the lemon as possible. We're just going to try to take

off . . . like that; real pretty. Hers is much more attractive than my

long spiral.

Hilah: I'm a professional chef.

David: A spiral is very attractive. We're just going to peel all the

lemons.

Hilah: You're faster, though. One last little bit there. Now what

happens?

David: We've got half a dozen lemons, 6 ounces or so of sugar. We're

just going to try to granulate it into here with our . . . what do you

call it, baseball bat muddler? We'll call it a muddler.

Hilah: You want to be right.

David: Use a ketchup bottle or whatever you've got. We're just trying

to use that sugar to scrape off that zest, that oil off of the zest;

the fragrant . . . it really smells good, doesn't it?

Hilah: Yeah, it does.

David: I want to rub it on my face a little bit.

Hilah: On your body.

David: Yeah, on my body. It smells good. We're just going to grind the

sugar gently with the lemons. Then once we have done that

sufficiently, we've expressed all of the oil out of the zest, we're

going to let this sit and infuse for half an hour to a couple of

hours.

Hilah: Is that all? Are we done muddling?

David: Do you want to take a shot at it?

Hilah: I want to do a little bit. This is fun. The sugar's all like

sandpaper in there, scraping everything up.

David: The sugar is abrasing the oil off the zest. It smells awesome,

smells good. We're basically flavoring the sugar right now. Oleo

saccharum.

Hilah: That's a good word. I should get the spelling on that before

you go. I think I did it sufficiently now.

David: I think so. Looks good. In case . . . sorry. It's your show.

I'm sorry. I forgot, I get carried away.

Hilah: This guy. You were going to say that we were going to not throw

these away.

David: Don't throw the lemons away.

Hilah: Wasteful.

David: Wasteful.

Hilah: We're going to juice them.

David: We're going to cut them in half and juice them.

Hilah: Like so.

David: You can use either a reamer-style or a squeezer.

Hilah: Totally going to juice more lemons than you.

David: Either way, you want to use fresh juice always. I like to

strain out the little seeds and bits.

Hilah: The pulpies.

David: Pulpy bits. Use a little mesh strainer for that.

Hilah: I think I'm beating you.

David: I'm more about quality than the quantity.

Hilah: My quality was better on the peels.

David: Oh man. We'll see when we taste that oleo saccharum. I think a

team effort is the key.

Hilah: Good idea. We're almost done. I was going to ask you to talk

about your blog and stuff, but no time for that.

David: Read about it at TipsyTexan.com.

Hilah: That's brilliant.

David: We're juiced here.

Hilah: Wait. I'll pour this. Strain this too.

David: We're going to strain this. We're straining.

Hilah: Crap. This thing pours like a mad man.

David: Strain those juicy bits. Perfect, beautiful.

Hilah: Now we're going to dissolve the sugar in the juice.

David: The next goal is to dissolve the sugar. We're going to use

about half the lemon juice we have, and then just give it a good stir.

We just want to dissolve that sugar. That was pretty good. We're just

going to strain these guys off. You can keep some of these for

garnish; that would be good.

Now we have our oleo saccharum, our lemon-infused sugar, and we've

made a little syrup with it, with the fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Next

part . . . do you know what the next part is?

Hilah: Is it booze?

David: Add the booze. Hilah's favorite part. Start to put the punch

together; obviously, you can't have punch without booze. Any type of

booze can go in punch. Every time I've been to Hilah's house in the

past, it's been Everclear, which is . . .

Hilah: Everclear's good.

David: No, that's a bad play. It's a really low-budget play. It's your

birthday; you've got to dial it up a notch if it's birthday punch.

We're going to start with 1 cup of Jamaican rum. Fragrant and

delicious.

Hilah: Smells good.

David: 4 ounces, or 1/2 -cup of cognac. This is a variation on a famous

American punch called Philadelphia Fish House Punch. When I say

variation, what that means is I didn't have the right ingredients for

it, so we're faking it.

Hilah: Sweet, I love variations.

David: That's cool. 4 ounces of that. Then when you make Philadelphia

Fish House Punch, it traditionally has a peach brandy, which we don't

have, so I'm going to fake it by using a little Applejack.

Hilah: That's like an apple brandy, right? It's still fruity.

David: Right, fruity. Applejack's a great, old, classic American

distillate. Then I've got this; it's luxurious in honor of your

birthday. This is called Aqua Perfecta; it's a really fancy pear

liquor. We're going to do about 1 ounce of that and see what happens.

This is our bootleg fish house punch.

Hilah: Why is it called fish house punch?

David: There was a social organization around Philadelphia, and this

was their house punch. It was not uncommon for clubs, associations,

organizations to have a punch for the house.

Hilah: Because it was a communal drinking thing.

David: We're actually going to call this Hilah House Punch.

Hilah: Hilah's Fish Punch.

David: Whatever. Now we're going to take our juice, sugar, lemon, oil

mixture . . .

Hilah: Oleo saccharum.

David: . . . our our oleo saccharum and add that to the booze. I know

this looks like a party, right? You just want to . . .

Hilah: I want to just chug it.

David: It's a little stout, even for a confirmed lush like yourself. I

should be speaking of myself.

Hilah: Both of us.

David: That's a bit stout. We're actually going to add a little

filtered water. I'm going to do about 1 1/2 pints or so, because punch is

something that you should be able to drink for hours on end . . .

Hilah: Without throwing up.

David: . . . without getting punch drunk.

Hilah: Good one.

David: Let's see what this tastes like. We need some ice; a little

ice. Do we have ice?

Hilah: Look at this one I made for you.

David: Hilah made fancy ice.

Hilah: I got a Jell-O mold, and I . . . it was about 2 hours before

we're supposed to do it and he was like, "I didn't make an ice mold,

did you?" I was like, "Crap, no". I did just put some ice cubes in

here then add some water, and then froze that. It's a shortcut to the

ice mold.

David: With punch, you want a big ice mold. You can take a milk jug or

paper carton, fill it up with ice, freeze it for a couple days, a day

and a half. That way you get a big chunk of ice in your punch. As your

party goes on, the punch stays cold, it dilutes but not too fast. It's

good. If you're last-minute about it like I am, you can do it Hilah's

way, which is pretty awesome. We've got our big block of ice, and

we're just going to chill that a little bit. Ladle it around.

Hilah: This looks cool.

David: Do you like this punch bowl?

Hilah: I do love this punch bowl.

David: It's pretty big.

Hilah: It's amazing.

David: It's like a . . . you could bathe a baby in it almost.

Hilah: If it was a tiny premature baby.

David: We're going to taste our punch and see how the balance is on

it, and then make adjustments as we need to. You want to go first?

Don't make a face if it's bad. How does it taste? Is it good?

Hilah: I think it's good. What do you think? Is it a little too sweet?

We could add more lemon juice maybe, or is it good?

David: That's pretty darn good. Actually, that's rooty-tooty fresh and

fruity.

Hilah: I'm no punch expert. Yay, punch. Cool. We should cheers or

something, right? Awesome.

David: Should we let the cameraman have some? He's not . . . he can't

drink?

Hilah: No.

David: Happy birthday.

Hilah: Thanks for coming on the show.

David: Cheers.

Hilah: I'll put this recipe up on the website. Also check out the link

that I will post to Tipsy Texan, which is amazing. Cheers. Happy

birthday.