The fascination fashionable drinkers have with milk punch can’t be overstated. The clarification method has existed for hundreds of years, however in the present day it’s an compulsory characteristic of nearly each cocktail menu—and typically, the whole menu. What started as a sensible answer to create a shelf-stable drink earlier than the arrival of refrigeration has morphed into an arms race to show even essentially the most unlikely drinks—from Espresso Martini to Miami Vice—crystal clear. Right here at Punch, we’ve coated the ever-expanding world of clarified cocktails, together with what, precisely, goes into making the “psychedelic” clarified buttermilk punch at Lisbon’s Pink Frog Speakeasy, how milk punch misplaced its thoughts and how one can stage up your milk punch at house. However opposite to the pervasiveness of the frilly, multiday initiatives that make it onto cocktail menus within the wild, milk punch doesn’t should be sophisticated. Listed below are three straightforward recipes to get began.