This Little Figgy

Holiday Season Sour Power

This issue’s theme of Belonging led me to think I should give you, dear reader, a punch… recipe. Nothing like standing alongside a fancy bowl of potent potable and sharing it—spiced with chummy and witty conversation—to feel interpersonal connection and acceptance. What’s more, as cocktail master Simon Difford puts it, “Punch is widely considered the earliest cocktail… a great punch is a fine balance between spirit, citrus, sweet, spice and dilution.”

But then it hit me (like a punch?): Very few of us, including your author, possess a punchbowl, posh or plain. And although there are inviting punch recipes in cocktail books of the moment like the highly recommend Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs & Juice by Toni Tipton-Martin, to serve those up at home you need to provide bottles of liquor and enough participants willing to imbibe. All those math problems seriously muck with finding peace among Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

So meet This Little Figgy, sort of a punch for two. Let’s start our belonging with the dyad and see what happens. This cocktail is festive and fruity, a sweet/sour concoction with the depth to get you through the 12 courses of a Thanksgiving feast or the 12 days of Christmas. Fig and rum echo their similar vanilla, caramel and strawberry flavors, and rye dries it all out a bit while packing some more vigor. The hit of sage in the garnish and the simple syrup adds to the seasonality, suggesting stuffing without getting you in the least stuffed.

Figs, on the other hand, are stuffed. While we commonly refer to the teardrop bulb as a fruit, it’s really a syconium, a fleshy receptacle that develops fruit inside its space. Needless to say, the Mission Fig’s name makes clear how it made its way through California, getting planted by padres up the coast from San Diego starting in 1768. Despite seeming to be a typical California product, like most of the plants and people of our state they are non-native. At this point they have achieved a state of belonging, too.

But figs have nothing on the orange when it comes to a Californian claim. (Of course, the missionaries also brought the orange here at the end of the 18th century.) It’s never easy working OJ into a cocktail, as it tends to read flat in flavor since its balance of sweet and sour edges into nothingness, partially because it has around one-tenth the acidity of lemon or lime juice. Plus, no one want to remind folks of those sloppy fern bar terrors, the 1980s’ Fuzzy Navel or the 1990s’ Sex on the Beach. The rescue is simple: Pair it with another citrus—in this case lemon—to heighten and brighten its range. Then the hit of Angostura bitters also aids the cause, binding all the drink’s flavors together in a cinnamon, clove bow.

As with most cocktail recipes, consider this one a guideline and not a rigid prescription. Maybe you have a different variety of fig tree. Just consider that while a Brown Turkey fig is closer to a Mission, a Sierra or Tiger will yield a drink that’s more subtle, less hearty. Maybe your trees and every vendor at the farmers market are figless—then you can shift to dried figs. If that’s the case, it’s best to work them into the simple-syrup stage to let their flavor steep. Go with a cup of chopped dried figs in with the water and sugar, simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, add the sage. Let sit for another 15 minutes. Then drain out all the solids. In the cocktail itself, up the amount of syrup you use to 1 ounce, and you no longer need to muddle, so here’s hoping that wasn’t your exercise plan for the day.

Now go find a fireplace, or even a video facsimile of one, and toast.