Before the story, a practical note: I've assembled the ready-made list of every ingredient you'll need to try this one at home. Onto the tale.
The Planter's Punch has 19th-century Caribbean origins, more precisely in British Jamaica. The original recipe was memorized through a famous rhyme: "One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak", i.e. one part lime, two parts sugar, three parts rum, four parts water or juice. The rhyme was printed in the British magazine Fun Magazine in 1878 and spread worldwide.
The name refers to the "planters", the English landowners of the Jamaican plantations, who drank it on their verandas in the colonial tropical heat. Myers's and Appleton are the most historically associated rums with the drink. The Planter's Punch is the ancestor of all modern tropical cocktails, including the Mai Tai and the Zombie, and an indispensable piece of Caribbean rum history.
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