Home › Food Drinks and Fun Drinks › Thistle Punch
Thistle Punch
Roadside thistles make a thrifty Scotch drink-but of rye-just look in the old cabin locker or under your canvas cot to make sure the bottles are still there and there's some citrous fruit in camp before you saunter out to philosophically gather a dozen thistle blooms. Better wear your pigskin gloves lest you meet the fate of Theophilus Thister, the successful thistle sifter, who, in sifting thistles, thrust three thousand through the thick of his thumb.
Having caught your thistles, take them back to camp and announce your punch party. Set aside the prettiest 6 and simmer the other 6 thistles tender in 10 minutes, using 1 quart of water. Meanwhile, slice a lemon and an orange into bowl or bucket and throw in half a dozen cloves. Then pour in 1 cup of sweet vermouth and 3 cups of whiskey. When the thistles are done pour them, water and all, into your punch, stir it well, heat everything over a double boiler and present your steaming bowl with the 6 fresh thistle heads floating jauntily on top. This had better be done on a chilly evening, of course-in no sense a surrealistic shocker, it's just a mighty fine drink. It is, for thistle is in any case the third essential ingredient that tinges the whole with its own subtle flavor, just as cucumber rind does any punch. Or, more accurately, as borage, that prickly little brother of the thistle, makes a Pimm's Cup sublime.
A camp punch that leans on its foraged garnish for scent more than flavor. The two things worth getting right are what you pick and how gently you heat it.
- Identify before you pickThe plant intended is a true thistle of the Cirsium or Carduus sort, the same tribe as the artichoke and cardoon, whose flower heads and receptacles are edible. Ornamental globe thistle (Echinops), sea holly and teasel are not the same plant and have no place in a drink.
- Roadsides are not clean groundVerges and ditch banks are the standard targets for herbicide spraying and road runoff, and the original's "roadside" is best ignored. Gather from ground you know, and rinse the heads well before either simmering or floating them.
- Handle with gloves and trimThe pigskin gloves are the one piece of practical advice in the preamble. Snip the spiny bracts back with scissors before the heads go into the bowl, or the six floating garnishes will be a nuisance to anyone dipping a cup.
- "Simmer tender in 10 minutes"Ten minutes in a quart of water is the whole extraction, and it gives you a pale, faintly vegetal infusion rather than anything strong. If the heads are large and woody, split them and give them a few minutes longer.
- Heat the spirit, do not cook itThe recipe does call for a double boiler. Bring the assembled punch only to steaming, hot to the lip and well short of a simmer, and hold it there. Anything approaching a boil drives off the alcohol and flattens the vermouth, and hot spirit over a direct camp flame is a fire risk.
- The bottlesThree cups of whiskey to one cup of sweet vermouth and one quart of thistle water: rye was the writer's preference, but any straight American whiskey or a blended Scotch works. Sweet vermouth is the red, Italian style, not dry.
- YieldRoughly two quarts finished, or eight to ten cups of the size people actually drink hot punch from. It is dilute by design and meant for standing about in the cold.
- ClovesSix whole cloves in two quarts is restrained and correct; they will keep infusing as the bowl sits. Fish them out if the punch is going to stand more than half an hour, or the clove will bully the citrus.