Out of principle, avoid serving Planter's Punches at backyard barbecues, where guests may label this drink - before even a taste - as overly sweet and ready-made with a tang commonly confused with concoctions found at kiddies' tables. Despite its name, the Planter's Punch is more a cocktail than a typical punch, which has five ingredients and is easily made in bulk. Although you may gladly sip this so-called punch out back on a warm afternoon or evening, serve it any time a few rum aficionados come to call.

Unlike most other tropical drinks, the Planter's Punch doesn't mask the distillation's taste with sweet syrups. Instead it's a smooth aperitif that subtly suggests it's time for dinner or a late lunch. Made with just 1 1/2 ounces white rum, 3/4 ounce lemon juice, and a dash of orange juice shaken with cracked ice and strained into a frosted wine glass - not punch bowl - filled with ice, you can easily keep this drink's ingredients on hand.

Although the recipe calls for any white rum, use Jamaican, which is more full-bodied and potent than Cuba's or Puerto Rico's light and dry versions. Don't be fooled by "planter's punch" rums, 80-proof dark rum's for people who really don't like dark rums. Although this type of rum is made in Jamaica, it's used more for cooking than for cocktails.

According to Victor Bergeron - better known as "Trader Vic," the man who created the Mai Tai before visiting the tropics - Jamaican rums owe their characteristics and qualities to a combination of factors that can't be duplicated elsewhere: soil, climate, and water; slow fermentation in pot stills; and adequate aging in white oak casks.

Trader Vic's version of the Planter's Punch is more common than the original, though we actually wouldn't recommend it. Of course, unlike Mr. Bergeron, we also wouldn't advocate serving Martinis in a punch bowl. With grenadine, sugar, and additional rum, his Planter's Punch recipe is too sweet and heavy-hitting for our tastes.

During the late '40s, bar compatriot and writer George Green recalls wandering into Mr. Bergeron's establishment in Oakland - then known as Hinky Dink's - to order a Planter's Punch. "I wanted a bracer before dinner. The bartender said I should only have one. I drank two and was toasted - boy, was he right. From then on we called them 'drunk-makers.'"

If guests ramble on about Trader Vic's fine drink tactics, assure them that you, too, subscribe to plenty of drink dictums and cite The Savoy Drink Book of 1930 - a reference surely read at least once by Mr. Bergeron. "The various subtle ingredients should be thoroughly mixed in such a way, that the bitter, the sweet, the spirit, nor liquor be perceptible the one over the other," wrote Harry Craddock, the book's author. "This accomplishment depends not so much upon the precise proportions of the various elements, as upon the order of their addition, and the manner of mixing." We don't actually believe that part about adding the ingredients in a specific order, but we do find it far more innocuous than adding grenadine and sugar. After all, besides using only fresh fruit and the best rum you can afford, there's little else to making a Planter's Punch. After mixing, just garnish with a lemon zest [1000Kbytes .mov] - and no paper umbrellas or plastic monkeys - and serve.

Remember, as with the Mint Julep, a little bravura and attention to tradition, can do wonders for any mixer's reputation, though admittedly little for the concoction. As with all simple cocktail recipes, never let on how easy they are to make, unless of course you want an assistant.

T H R E A D S : Where to share your thoughts.

Send comments to Cocktail.

Copyright © 1994-97 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.