Crack open the cocktail menu at any high-end restaurant or bar these days, and you’ll probably find milk punch on the list. Lately, the clarified libation has turned up everywhere from New York to Hong Kong. But though they’re freshly trendy, these drams have long since established their place as a foundational way to make a great beverage.
“Milk punch has been around for hundreds of years,” says Austin Hennelly, bar director at Kato, the Michelin-starred tasting-menu spot in Los Angeles. (His boba-inspired milk punch, he reports, is the restaurant’s most popular drink, bar none.) “Ben Franklin has recipes for milk punch in some of his writings.”
Among the many reasons for its recent resurgence? This is one juice that’s worth the squeeze. To make it, bartenders combine spirits and citrus with milk, intentionally curdling the dairy’s proteins. The solids are filtered out overnight, leaving behind a crystal-clear concoction with a silky mouthfeel that softens the bite of whatever alcohol is in it.
At Huso, a Robb Report Best of the Best winner in New York, those qualities led to the Jasmine Milk Punch, which blends gin, jasmine tea, yellow Chartreuse, and lemon. Plus, it’s easy to serve from the credenza that doubles as the intimate boîte’s service bar. “For us, a lot of the approach to cocktailing overlaps with feasibility and what we can actually pull off,” says head sommelier Kevin Goyenechea, who likes that milk punches are shelf-stable. “I can make 50 portions, and for two months we can pour it straight out of bottles.”
The Connaught Bar’s version of the milk punch cocktail.
Courtesy of The Connaught
Even bars with grander floor plans have embraced the style. At the Aubrey, the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong’s Japanese izakaya, bar manager Stefano Bussi serves the Chinmoku, a gin and shochu beverage blending green apple, nori, and chamomile tea in surprising harmony. “By looking at the ingredients, you would never associate [them] with the final flavor result,” Bussi says. The Connaught Bar in London offers an interactive take called Magnetum, which layers Macallan 12 with a milk punch made with sherry, fennel, lemon, and pineapple. Guests are invited to mix the two parts with a special stirrer that doubles as a rest for the drink’s oversize ice cube. “My favorite reaction is always when [people] feel magnetically attracted to the ice lifter and start playing with it,” says Giorgio Bargiani, assistant director of mixology at the Connaught.
But perhaps the quality that makes this drink so approachable is how relatively easy it is to prepare. More than one guest at N.Y.C.’s recently opened Chateau Royale has asked co-owner Cody Pruitt if they can pull off his cardamom- and honey-laden Bee’s Knees Milk Punch at home. “I’ll jot down a very rough recipe, just in terms of proportions for them, and they have success with it,” he says. “If Ben Franklin could make them by candlelight, using muslin or an old sock to strain his batches, I don’t think people in 2025 should be reticent to get their hands dirty and make something fun.”
Top: Kato, in L.A., serves its boba-inspired milk punch over spheres imported from Japan’s Kumaroto Ice company.
