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How to make crystal-clear ice like a glacier with an insulated cooler at home. The final ice cubes look like diamonds in the cocktail, impressing your guests.

A Little Bit of Glacier in Your Glass

Put a little time into making this milk-washed punch and you won’t need to shake any refills at your cocktail party. The final punch is deceptively lush and seductive. Plus, the milk-washing process helps to preserve the punch, which means a big batch can sit in your fridge for a long time. Having a cocktail party? Pull out a pitcher of this elixir and pour it into glasses filled with glacier ice. Where did milk washing come from? In the last decade or so, with the renewed interest in mixology and old-school cocktails, people are making milk-washed punch again. Why? The first printed recipes for milk-washed punch date back to the early 1700s in England. After spending years in London, Benjamin Franklin published his own recipe for milk punch in 1763, which started with 6 quarts of brandy. Alcohol then might have been a little harsher than we can buy today. Once refinements in the distillation process improved the taste of commercial alcohol, the practice fell out of popularity. But how do you “wash” alcohol with milk? The casein protein in the milk binds with the bitter polyphenols and astringent tannins in the alcohol—all the stuff that makes the alcohol acrid and murky. If you pour it all through a sieve into a container, you leave that raft of bitterness behind.What remains is the taste of the cleanest alcohol possible, with a bit of sweet and creamy texture from the whey—a clear and full-bodied alcoholic punch.Your friends will love this drink. And what, they might ask, is this?And you can tell them, it’s milk-washed punch! Tell them you found it at ChefSteps.Also, if you like epic—make Glacier Ice for your Punch
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Clarified Milk-Washed Punch