Member-only story
Food and Drink | Cocktails
Jasper’s Planter’s Punch
A rum punch from the King of Caribbean bartending
Perhaps no one casts a larger shadow on the world of rum, Tiki, and tropical drinks than Jasper LeFranc, who bartended at the Bay Roc Hotel in Jamaica. We last chatted about Jasper LeFranc in the post for the White Cloud, noting that much of the tropical and Tiki drinks world credited to the likes of Don the Beachcomber or Trader Vic is really borrowed from folks like Jasper LeFranc or Mariano Lucidine. Jasper was Afro-Caribbean, and those roots, both in tropical island culture and the misery of the cane fields, shape much of what we think of as tropical drinks today.
Jasper LeFranc is particularly famous for two drinks — the rum punch and Jasper’s Planter’s Punch. The latter is carried by a stock mix shrouded in mystery (sort of) and confusion. Today, we take on Jasper’s Planter’s Punch and, along the way, reveal the worst-kept secret in tropical drinks — Jasper’s “Secret” Mix.
In general, the Planter’s Punch can be seen as the foundation for nearly all punches, and as the modern era of the single-serving punch (which is really what a cocktail is) began, the base for most all tropical cocktail or sour templates. The old saying for constructing a punch is “one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong…
