Cocktail & Other Recipes By Spirit Rum Cocktails

Café Corrección Ponche

By
Liquor.com
Liquor.com

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Updated 04/24/22
two glass mugs of Caffe Correccion Ponche, garnished with cinnamon sticks and set next to a coffee carafe
Image:

Liquor.com / Tim Nusog

Coffee is best known as a morning pick-me-up, while cocktails most often appear at night, but coffee and cocktails are popular partners, joined together in several classic and modern drinks, from the Irish Coffee to the Espresso Martini. It should come as no surprise, as baristas and bartenders are two groups who obsess about quality ingredients and flavor profiles.

The best coffee cocktails consider how their constituent parts will play together, pairing certain coffees with certain spirits, liqueurs and mixers. Some drinks benefit from simple drip coffee, while others require the strong taste of espresso and others still, like the Café Corrección Ponche, call for the rich and silky character of cold-brew.

The Café Corrección Ponche comes from bar pro Eric Alperin, who opened the acclaimed cocktail bar, The Varnish, in Los Angeles in 2009 and has also worked in or contributed to several other great bars around the country. The drink is essentially a coffee-laced Rum Punch, and to make it Alperin enlists demerara sugar, orange peels, añejo rum, Punt e Mes vermouth, fresh orange juice, simple syrup and cinnamon.

He starts by muddling the sugar and orange peels, and then letting them sit for about an hour. The sugar absorbs the citrus oils, creating a rich orange-infused sugar to sweeten the punch. Añejo rums are aged, adding oaky barrel notes like vanilla and toffee to the sugarcane spirit, while Italian-made Punt e Mes has a bittersweet taste that merges an herbal backbone with orange accents.

Rich cold-brew coffee brings caffeine to the party, but also a rich, silky vein of flavor. The fresh orange juice and simple syrup round out the punch with bright citrus and a dash of sweetness. Sprinkle some freshly ground cinnamon on top of the punch bowl, garnish each cup with a cracked cinnamon stick, and prepare to have some very happy guests.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 teaspoons demerara sugar

  • 2 strips orange peel

  • 1 1/2 cups añejo rum

  • 1/2 cup Punt e Mes vermouth

  • 1 cup cold-brew coffee

  • 1/2 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed

  • 1/2 cup simple syrup

  • Garnish: cinnamon, freshly ground

  • Garnish: 4 cinnamon sticks, cracked in half

Steps

Serves about 8.

  1. In a large bowl or pitcher, muddle the sugar and orange peels, then let stand for about an hour so the sugar extracts the oils.

  2. Add the rum, Punt e Mes, cold-brew coffee, orange juice and simple syrup with a little cracked ice.

  3. Stir and strain into a punch bowl filled with a large ice block.

  4. Top with a sprinkling of freshly ground cinnamon.

  5. Serve in teacups, garnished with cinnamon sticks cracked in half horizontally.