Milk wouldn’t seem to be the most common booze component (let alone the most promising), but we do have a minor history with it here at drunk pynchon dot com. We first got lactic live on air with the Pynchon in Public podcast back in 2015—Chris took the vodka with milk, while Bo and I mixed ours with vegetable soup and watermelon juice.

More recently, it’s been less cow and more horse. I journeyed to Kyrgyzstan a few years ago in search of kumis, a fermented horse milk drink that makes a couple of appearances in Gravity’s Rainbow. The liquid itself was a little hard to take, but that post nevertheless must rank in the very highest echelons of my pantheon of favourite Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet times. Whatever the species, milk has a big reputation to live up to around these parts!

Today’s milky concoction bubbles up out of a warm Christmasy scene in the back half of Mason & Dixon. The surveyors have packed up their theodolites and tripods for the season and headed back east to Philadelphia. Things are cozy, although there are icicles in the punch:

At Christmastide, the Tavern down the Road from Harlands’ opens its doors, and soon ev’ryone has come inside. Candles beam ev’rywhere. The Surveyors, knowing this year they’ll soon again be heading off in different Directions into America, stand nodding at each other across a Punch-bowl as big as a Bathing-Tub. The Punch is a secret Receipt of the Landlord, including but not limited to peach brandy, locally distill’d Whiskey, and milk. A raft of long Icicles broken from the Eaves floats upon the pale contents of the great rustick Monteith.

Mason & Dixon, p. 509.

A Monteith appears to be a 19th century punch bowl with a scalloped rim, named after some Scottish bloke known for wearing a coat with a similarly scalloped ruffle at the hem. This particular Monteith is truly gargantuan. No wonder its a pleasant Christmastide with a bathtub’s worth of whisky-brandy punch to nod across!

My own punch today will alas span narrower shores. If you’ve read my peach brandy post, you’ll know that stuff wasn’t easy to come by, and I’ve only got half a little bottle left. I’ll forgo filling even a modest punch bowl and settle for a few of glasses.

Here’s my take on the landlord’s secret punch Receipt:

Peach Brandy Milk Punch (to make ~4 serves)

4 and a bit shots of The Gospel straight rye whisky
2 shots of peach brandy
1 shot of caramelised orange
2 shots of milk combined with 1 g lactic acid

That whisky is “locally distill’d” not even 3 km from my house! The peach brandy is from Koval in Chicago, a bit closer to the Harlands’ place. For my imaginings of the more secretive parts of the recipe, I’ve reduced some orange juice down by 2/3rds and added some sugar. And I’ve also employed an exotic mixological process…

You may have noticed the photos don’t look very milky. In fact, my punch is crystal clear. But it certainly does contain milk! This is all thanks to the magic of clarified milk punch. To produce this seemingly paradoxical elixir, I curdled the milk solids with a hit of lactic acid before filtering the whole mix slowly through a V60 coffee filter. Murky, chunky, nasty looking liquid goes in. Brilliantly clear, really pretty sophisticated punch comes out. Its a magical process to behold, spectacular clarity emerging from foulest murk. The recipe I’ve come up with here was very closely based on one from Whisky and Alement (old favourites around here–they brought us the aged bourbon and a boilermaker way back at post #5).

Do I think the tavern landlord is clarifying her milk punch on a bathtub-full scale? Well actually, according to this NYT Style article, clarified mik punch was “a staple version of the colonial era’s trendiest drink” with “every upscale tavern keeper, gentleman of means and proud hostess in the English-speaking world” boasting their own version. The earliest such recipe dates from 1711 and includes eight lemons, a gallon of brandy, two pounds of loaf sugar, grated nutmeg and two quarts of milk, curdled and strained. I originally intended the clarified milk to be a playful twist on Pynchon’s Receipt, but it seems like this is probably exactly the sort of thing Messrs Mason & Dixon were sipping that Christmastide evening.

It’s good stuff too! My version has a delightful sweet peachy aroma with lovely floral orange blossom notes. The orange reduction complements the peach brandy terrifically. On the palate, you might as well be biting into a velvety peach. There’s a little zing from the acid, balanced with a soft round milky body and subtle milko-chew sweetness. The peach shines through bright and clear, while the whisky recedes into the background, contributing a light cinammon spice that accents the fruit nicely. The clarification process lends it all an incredibly integrated character—this is really one of the best cocktails I’ve made here. And it does look stunning. Lacking a floating icicle, I’ve settled for a big ice cube.

Is there more milk to come on Tom Pynchon’s Liquor Cabinet? I’m glad to report we’re not quite done yet: “potentially toxic old-time eggnog” from Bleeding Edge awaits. And who knows—perhaps there’s a forthcoming novel dripping with White Russians?