Ti’ Punch is a popular drink in the French West Indies, especially in Martinique. The name is Creole, derived from the French “petit punch,” and the drink, which dates back to at least the 1880s, when Lafcadio Hearn encountered it in Martinique, is served everywhere from fancy hotels to rustic beach bars. It consists of three ingredients—rum, sugar, and a squeeze of lime peel—and is commonly made with cane syrup and 100-proof unaged rhum agricole, a French-style rum with distinctive grassy, vegetal notes.
The drink often involves a small ritual. A bottle of rum is typically placed on the bar or table, along with small bowls of sugar, lime, and occasionally ice (some insist this must never be used, but it has been cited as an integral part of the drink since 1903, and Dr. André Nègre, the great chronicler of the cuisine of the French Antilles, was a proponent of it). Each customer makes a drink to his or her own liking: some incline toward sweet; others prefer only a fleeting hint of lime zest. Claudine Neisson-Vernant, the matriarch of the family behind Martinique’s Neisson Rhum, likens the making of Ti’ Punch to a Japanese tea ceremony—a moment best shared with friends.
Recipe: Place a small amount of sugar or cane syrup into a tumbler along with a bit of fresh lime—this can be as large as a wedge, but is usually a disc of peel with a little flesh clinging to it, squeezed peel-down into the glass. Add 60 ml white rhum agricole (50 percent ABV is traditional; an aged rhum will yield a “Vieux Punch,” which often omits the lime) and stir until the sweetener is dissolved, pressing the lime in the process. Some prefer to swizzle using the bois lélé, an island plant that forms five branches at each joint and is harvested and trimmed to form a star-shaped stirrer. This is rolled between the palms to frisk the drink into happy effervescence. An ice cube or two for cooling and dilution is optional.
See also rhum agricole and swizzle stick.
Clarke, Paul. “An Introduction to Ti’ Punch,” Imbibe Magazine, July 19, 2015. http://imbibemagazine.com/introduction-ti-punch/ (accessed March 12, 2021).
Hearn, Lafcadio. Two Years in the French West Indies. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890.
Nègre, André. Antilles et Guyane a travers leur cuisine, 5th ed. Caen: Le Brun, 1973.
“Notes sur la Martinique.” La réforme sociale, July 1903, 583.
By: Wayne Curtis
Postcard, “L’heure du punch,” Martinique, 1970s. Note the ice, which some would consider noncanonical in a Ti’ Punch.
Wondrich Collection.
Postcard, “L’heure du punch,” Martinique, 1970s. Note the ice, which some would consider noncanonical in a Ti’ Punch. Source: Wondrich Collection.