The issue with poncha isn’t find it, however somewhat getting house after ingesting it. A mixture of rum, citrus juice and sugar (or honey) that’s been “whipped” till frothy with a picket software akin to a muddler, poncha is a staple on Madeira, a mountainous island off the northwestern coast of Africa. Essentially the most conventional poncha bars are typically perched on steep hillsides on the fringe of impossibly winding roads. In case you drink two—a straightforward feat, since they go down effortlessly—the one-lane switchbacks on the fringe of precipitous cliffs over the Atlantic Ocean all of the sudden appear all of the extra precarious.
Poncha has its roots on this difficult panorama. The Portuguese claimed Madeira in 1419, and launched sugar cane to the island shortly after colonization. Inside a number of many years, Madeira was a very powerful supply of sugar on this planet. Although sugar manufacturing in the end shifted to Brazil, sugar cane caught on Madeira, and right now the island is house to a bunch of meals and drinks that revolve across the plant. Six engenhos, sugar processing mills and distilleries, can nonetheless be discovered there, and right now Madeira is the one place in Europe the place rhum agricole (rum distilled from sugar cane juice somewhat than molasses) is produced.
Although it stays unclear who first determined to mix rum, citrus juice and sugar on Madeira to make poncha, it was seemingly an early colonial growth. “We all know that citrus fruits began to be included on ships from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when a remedy for scurvy was found,” explains Teresa Vivas, a Portuguese meals author and researcher often primarily based in Madeira. “It’s exactly throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that Madeira grew to become a big producer of sugar. From there to mixing it with rum, additionally produced on the island throughout that point, it appears a brief path.” Regardless of its early roots, she explains that poncha wasn’t commonplace till the twentieth century, and didn’t turn out to be as widespread as it’s now till round 30 years in the past.
At A Venda do André, a poncha bar relationship again to the Fifties that adheres to the sting of a kind of winding mountain roads, good-looking picket cupboards line the partitions. Vintage packages, an old-timey scale and retro liquor commercials converse to the house’s former life. “One half was the store, the opposite was a bar,” says supervisor Ilda Marques, explaining that within the outdated days males—and solely males—would cease into the bar half for a drink on their method house from work. Right this moment, the store half of A Venda do André is essentially for present, however this hybrid house stays the template for the standard poncha bars that exist throughout the island to this present day.
I order a poncha and Ilda asks me if I need mine regional, which means local-style, or pescador, fisherman-style. “The pescador was created in Câmara de Lobos,” Ilda tells me, referencing the fishing village positioned on the backside of the winding street. “It’s the extra conventional model, and it’s extra tart,” she explains of its lemon-forward profile. “The regional, with orange juice and honey [rather than sugar], got here later.”
I go for a pescador, and she or he locations a tall, heavy tumbler on the marble bar. Into this, she peels the zest of a neighborhood inexperienced lemon and tops it with a heaping spoonful of white sugar. With a big picket muddler, she vigorously kilos the combination till it’s morphed right into a aromatic, pale inexperienced paste. She then fills a squat, stemmed glass to its midway level with native unaged rhum agricole and tops it off with freshly squeezed lemon juice. These are added to the tumbler, the components agitated utilizing a novel picket software colloquially known as a caralhinho—“little dick.” The combination is then strained again into the brief glass to be served.
The drink is tart and aromatic, practically all of the boozy warmth from the high-proof rum tempered by the considerable citrus. Historically, poncha is served simply south of room temperature, with out ice (“They didn’t have ice again then,” Ilda tells me by the use of rationalization), though more and more it’s seen served over a number of ice cubes, in a tall glass. Even with out the addition of ice, the drink is vibrant and refreshing.
Together with my drink, Ilda offers me a dentinho, a “chunk,” which generally means roasted peanuts or brined lupin beans supplemented with garlic, peppers and parsley. At different bars on the island, dentinhos can take the type of one thing extra substantial, reminiscent of a salad of fava beans, a tiny plate of macaroni or boiled shrimp, deep-fried pork rinds or cubes of deep-fried polenta.
A pair days later I discover myself at Taberna da Poncha, yet one more former nook store-cum-poncha bar positioned on the aspect of a mountain street. I order a poncha regional, and as proprietor Ana Vicente prepares my order she describes the quite a few variations on the drink, which additionally embody these made with tangerine or ardour fruit juice. Taberna da Poncha is one in every of Madeira’s hottest locations for poncha; with so many orders, as an alternative of whipping up one or two glasses at a time, workers members make the equal of a number of drinks in giant pitchers earlier than transferring it to bottles for simpler service.
To the combination of freshly squeezed lemon juice, orange juice and native white rum, Ana provides a dollop of honey, poncha regional’s different distinctive ingredient, then brings all of it along with the caralhinho. She strains the golden liquid into its signature glass and pushes it towards me alongside a handful of peanuts dumped straight on the counter (the shells are discarded on the ground).
“It’s sweeter than the pescador, nevertheless it needs to be balanced—no single taste ought to stand out,” she tells me. And she or he’s proper. The drink leans simply barely towards the candy finish of the spectrum, however manages to return collectively in a splendidly cohesive method.
As was the case at A Venda do André, I sip lower than half of my poncha, struggling my utmost to not down the entire thing in a single go. Then, reluctantly, I go away the drink behind and brace myself for the winding, perilous drive again to my lodge.
