Brandy Milk Punch

Partly. Milk fat flattens aroma, so anything delicate goes quiet and the money is gone. What survives is a brandy with fruit and a little heat: a young cognac, an Armagnac, or a brandy de Jerez, whose raisin sweetness sits well with the sugar. Save the special bottle for a glass on its own.

Oat works surprisingly well, being sweet and thick enough to carry 60 ml of brandy. Buy the barista version if you can, since the extra fat is what keeps the texture from going watery. Drop the syrup to 10 ml either way, because most oat milks arrive sweetened already.

Plenty of them do, a few drops of extract in with the syrup. It lands as dessert rather than as a flavor you could name, which is either the point or the problem depending on your mood. Three drops covers two drinks. A teaspoon turns it into a milkshake.

Lighter than that, and much less rich. Eggnog is a custard you drink, thickened with yolk and usually cream. This is cold milk with brandy in it and nothing to slow it down. What they share is the color and the nutmeg some people grate over the top.

A classic Brandy Milk Punch calls for 60 ml (2 oz) Brandy, 90 ml (3 oz) Milk, 15 ml (0.5 oz) Simple syrup. That single-serve spec scales cleanly — the recipe above converts it to oz and multiplies it for 2–4 drinks.

A standard Brandy Milk Punch is roughly 15% ABV once mixed (before ice melt softens it further). That makes it about as strong as a glass of wine.

A Brandy Milk Punch is stirred, not shaken. It contains no citrus juice, so stirring keeps it crystal clear and silky instead of cloudy and aerated.