Chatham Artillery Punch has been called the “strongest punch in history” as well as the “mortal enemy of despair.” It’s also said to “vanquish hardy men,” and the Georgia-based artillery unit that concocted it boasted that it could take down generals and admirals in ways that battlefield gunfire could not. One of the earliest of the vanquished generals was (allegedly) George Washington (who could more than handle his drinks). One of the early admirals was George Dewey, who got so vanquished, the press felt bad about reporting the drunken fall of a national hero.
Related: George Washington’s egg nog recipe will destroy you
The original recipe for Chatham Artillery Punch is as lost to time as its origin story, but modern-day recreations are just as delicious and pack just as much of a wallop. Visitors to the city of Savannah can still find a version of the punch at many of the restaurants and bars in the area, but for those who can’t make a trip to coastal Georgia, we’ll tell you how it’s done. But first, a little history.
The Chatham Artillery
The 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment (also known as Chatham Artillery) is today a unit of the Georgia National Guard. But it’s a unit older than the United States and even older than the U.S. Army itself. It has been part of nearly every major conflict in American history. First formed in 1751, it fought the British siege of Savannah during the American Revolution. Along with another of Savannah’s units, the Republican Blues, the artillery was stationed at Fort Jackson during the War of 1812.
When the Civil War broke out, the Chatham Artillery broke with the Union, only to be captured at Fort Pulaski in 1862. Everyone who wasn’t captured then would surrender at Appomattox in 1865. They returned to Georgia for the Spanish-American War but were called up again for World Wars I and II, and sent to Europe to support kicking the Germans out of France. The unit underwent a massive reorganization during the Vietnam era, but was federalized during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That’s a lot of quick history, but the part that most important to us right now is somewhere before the start of the War of 1812 to just before the Civil War. The Republican Blues was formed in 1808, and like the Chatham Artillery at the time, was not just a military unit. It was also a social club. Think the Moose Lodge, the Eagles, or Freemasons, but with guns and federal recognition. Sometime in the 1850s, the legend goes, the Republican Blues made their way home to Savannah. To greet them, a man named A.H. Luce (sometimes a local civilian, sometimes Sgt. A.H. Luce) decided he would create a new punch in their honor.
Esquire drinks columnist David Wondrich (who literally wrote the book on these old punches) told Atlanta Magazine that Luce filled a horse bucket with ice, sugar, lemon juice, rum, brandy, whiskey, and champagne. Journalists only discovered it in the 1880s, but by then the lore had overtaken the truth of its origins. Chatham Artilley Punch had also allegedly already taken down Washington, Dewey, President James Monroe, Gen. William T. Sherman, and would soon add President Chester A. Arthur to the list.
Chatham Artillery Punch Recipe
It’s very important to remember that a punch made during the Revolutionary War through the Spanish-American War was not the sickly-sweet fruit concoctions that plague middle school and high school dances. The original recipe is said to be just a mix of lemon juice, sugar, with a quart of rum, brandy, whiskey, and champagne, which is a pretty hardy punch. This recipe from Southern Living says the punch bowl also contains an equal portion of black tea, which feels like a lie—our forefathers weren’t exactly fans of cutting their alcohol, especially with something that wasn’t more alcohol.
But the Southern Living recipe does provide the best breakdown of what makes the punch more than just a bowl of booze: the oleo-saccharum.
Oleo-saccharum is made by peeling lemons (since you need the lemon juice for the punch) and soaking the peels in granulated sugar for 12 hours before combining everything for the punch. The sugar draws the oil from the peels, adding a unique addition to the punchbowl. Or you can just use lemon juice: if unsweetened lemon juice was good enough for your great-great-great-granddaddy, it’s good enough for you. Making it with lemon sugar takes an hour or more of prep. If you choose to go without, then this is as easy as making jungle juice.
Ingredients:
• 12 Lemons
• 2 cups of raw sugar
• 750ml cognac
• 750ml bourbon
• 750ml Jamaican rum
• 3 750ml bottles of Champagne (Wondrich only uses 2)
• One five-pound bag of ice
Preparation:
• Peel the lemons, but just the yellow part; avoid the white pith.
• Add peels and sugar to a bowl, muddle to combine. Sit for at least an hour, some say as long as 12 hours.
• Juice the lemons to make 2 cups of juice. Add to sugar/peel mix and stir until sugar dissolves.
• Add everything to a 2.5-gallon punchbowl, unlined trashcan, or the Igloo beverage cooler you used to use for soccer games.
• Filter out the lemon peels.
Drink Responsibly. Which, in this case, means drinking something else.
