Planters Punch Cocktail: A tropical oasis

If you’re looking for a tropical cocktail for your next get together, try out this planters punch cocktail. This pretty yellowish red drink is a tropical oasis in your glass.

What is a Planter’s Punch Cocktail?

A planter’s punch cocktail is a combination of lime juice, simple syrup, dark rum, club soda and orange juice. The resulting drink is a very pretty yellow color and tastes of fizzy, sweet citrus blend with a kick of rum that is still smooth going down.

You can use store-bought or fresh-squeezed lime juice for this cocktail. The lime juice in this cocktail really helps to bring out the citrus flavors and give a little tart zing to the drink.

When choosing an orange juice for this drink, it’s best to use fresh and pulp free. The orange juice lends a sweet flavor and it’s bright orange color.

Dark rum it’s basically rum that has been aged in wooden barrels. This aging process turns the liquor from clear to a gold color. And adds some complex flavors to the drink. Some complex flavors to the drink. It is slightly sweet and spicy with oaky flavors mingled in.

When to Make This Drink:

This punch cocktail is perfect for warm season occasions especially if you need a large batch of drinks such as:

• 4th of July
• pool parties
• spring and summer celebrations
• barbecues

Variations:

Even though this drink is an IBA standard, there are a lot of different twists you can do to this drink to change the flavor to be just what you prefer (which we have done in our recipe). Here are a few other ways to mix it up:

• Substitute the simple syrup. The IBA version of this drink calls for sugarcane syrup instead of simple syrup. If you can find sugar cane syrup it really lends a nice unique flavor.
• Substitute the lime juice. Many recipes for this punch call for lemon juice instead of lime juice. We like the lime juice because it has a little more of a unique flavor. But lemon juice works well also.
• Add some bitters. You commonly see this recipe call for orange bitters. Which are a nice tropical addition.
• Add in other juices. You will commonly see pineapple juice and also passion fruit juice either added to the orange juice or in place of it.
• Add some grenadine. If you like a sweeter brighter colored drink, add in grenadine which is a bright red pomegranate flavored syrup.
• Add orange liqueur. To emphasize the sweet citrus flavor in this drink, add an orange liqueur like triple sec or Curacao.
• Make it in a large batch. This is a punch after all. The recipe below is for a single serving, but multiply the ingredients by five or six and make a whole punch bowl worth.
• Add some fruit garnish. If you really want a capitalize on the fresh tropical flavor in their drink, add some garnishes. Any fruit will do, but if you really want it to meld well with the flavors in your drink choose the fruit that matches the fruit juice you use.

Some other similar cocktails you may enjoy are: the hurricane cocktail, rum punch and jamaican me crazy drink.

How to make this drink:

If you’ve got 5 minutes, then you can have this drink ready to go. With five ingredients all you need to do is toss them together and mix them up.If you’ve got 5 minutes, then you can have this drink ready to go. With five ingredients all you need to do is toss them together and mix them up.

Equipment:

• Rocks/Scotch/Bourbon glass
• jigger
• cocktail shaker
• Hawthorne strainer
• bar spoon

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz Dark Rum
• .5 oz Lime juice
• 1 oz Sugar cane syrup/simple syrup
• .75 oz club soda
• .75 oz Orange Juice
• Ice

Instructions:

Step one

As you’re getting started make sure you have everything needed for the drink. Gather up a rocks glass, lime juice, simple syrup, orange juice, dark rum, club soda, shaker or bar spoon, ice and jigger.

Step two

Take your glass and your ice. And put the ice in the glass. The glass should be almost completely filled with ice.

note: We like to build this cocktail directly in the glass. However, you can build it in the shaker instead.

To make this in the shaker, fill a shaker with ice as well. Measure all your ingredients directly into the shaker. Then shake it for 15 to 20 seconds and pour it into your glass.

Step three

Using your jigger, measure 0.75 oz of orange juice. Pour that into your rocks glass.

Step four

Using your jigger, measure 1 oz of simple syrup. Pour that into rocks glass.

Step Five

Using your jigger, measure 0.5 oz of lime juice. Pour that into your rocks glass.

Step Six

Using your jigger, measure 1.5 oz of dark rum. Pour that into your rocks glass.

Step Seven

Using your jigger, measure 0.75 oz of club soda. Pour that into rocks glass.

Step Eight

To mix everything together, carefully pour all of the contents from your glass and to your shaker. Then, pour everything from the shaker back into the glass.

If you’d like to add a garnish, now is the time to do so. Slice up an orange wheel, a lime wedge, or any other type of fruit you desire and place it on the rim of the glass.

Recipe