How to Make Milk Punch at Home, Plus 12 Easy Cocktail Recipes

Today, a cocktail bar menu rarely feels complete without at least one clear cocktail. In the past decade, centrifuges may have simplified the task of clarification, but separating milk solids from the liquid (aka making milk punch) is no modern-day invention—it dates back to the 1700s. The versatile technique means that practically any cocktail can go clear—from nonalcoholic drinks to tropical favorites like the Piña Colada. Here’s how.

For most bartenders, the preferred at-home technique calls for gently heating milk over the stove before straining out the solids that form as the water content evaporates. Matt Piacentini, from the Up & Up in New York City, points out that many drinks made this way fall under the “wintry end of the spectrum” (see: the London Fog–inspired Fog Lights Milk Punch), but recipes on all sides of the flavor wheel can benefit from the milk punch treatment. His Disco Volante, for example, is built on a foundation of Aperol and gin, reading more like a bracing aperitif with an added textural boost.

At Mister Paradise in New York’s East Village, bartender Will Wyatt follows a heatless technique akin to the first milk punches of the 18th century: He allows milk and lime juice to combine until the mixture curdles on its own, then he strains out the curds. He adds this to a reduced Coca-Cola syrup and Ceylon tea in the rum-based Sex Panther, a twist on the Cuba Libre. Eric Simmons, bar lead at Ginger’s in Dallas, takes a similar approach in his play on the New York Sour, the Diamond Noir, where the entire drink is filtered through heavy cream.

Also forgoing the stovetop method, Ryan Chetiyawardana, owner of the Lyan family of bars, uses yogurt whey (the watery result of straining full-fat yogurt) for a fast track to added richness in his Whey Punch. This method doesn’t require as much time to wait for the drink to curdle, but, Chetiyawardana says, “it still manages to get the silkiness you want to drink.”

While milk punch typically needs an acid to curdle the milk, Daniel Villa, bartender at Supperland in Charlotte, North Carolina, created an alternative method to clarify any drink using rehydrated powdered milk—no citrus juice necessary. That means drinks like a Vieux Carré can be clarified without lime or lemon, and with an added benefit: Milk powder can be toasted before rehydrating, resulting in a cocktail that tastes “simultaneously milk-punched and brown-butter fat-washed,” according to Villa.

Milk punch doesn’t require dairy—but there are a few extra steps to take if using coconut or soy milk. Deepali Gupta, formerly of Sidecar in New Delhi, served a coconut milk–clarified Piña Colada at the bar and says the relatively low fat content in coconut milk means that clarifying with the ingredient yields a lower-volume drink. The bar sometimes adds coconut oil to the milk in order to increase the fat. At Los Angeles’ Night on Earth, meanwhile, head bartender Wes Meyn says including an ingredient with tannins helps “break” fats and proteins in the bar’s coconut milk–based punch, a clarified take on the Swampwater called the Swamp Thing. Ezza Rose, bar consultant and educator behind Good Spirits PDX, has had success using extra-thick soy milk (she likes Pacific Foods Ultra Soy). Like Gupta, she notes that nondairy clarification tends to take longer—“it’s time-consuming; set aside a weekend”—and requires some experimentation to get the right ratios and consistencies. 

For a faster alternative, Villa uses his powdered method with coconut milk powder in a tequila- and coffee-based drink called the Careful Cat. Giancarlo Quiroz Jesus, head bartender at 53AD in Brooklyn, New York, meanwhile, adds lactic acid solution to silken tofu to speed up the process for his Always Disco. And Meyn, at Night on Earth, uses a technique learned from fellow L.A. bartender Austin Hennelly: By clarifying in a wider, shallower, slotted hotel pan, he increases the surface area, which makes larger curds and accelerates the process.

A final technique takes the milk punch approach and applies it only to a particular spirit, rather than an entire cocktail. Where clarifying a drink as a whole can soften the acidity of fresh citrus and tropical juices, using a milk-washed spirit instead imparts richness without stripping away that bright flavor. This step, writes Punch contributor and drink expert Jack Schramm, “can take just about any shaken drink to the next level.”