The original version of this recipe was written by Charles Dickens (yes, that Charles Dickens) in a letter to a friend. It was later published in the book Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl by David Wondrich (isn't that a fantastic book title, by the way?). The original punch calls for combining sugar and lemon peels to extract the oil from the peels—this is called an olea saccharum. To this you add a substantial amount of rum and brandy and light it on fire. You finish the punch with water or tea and a squeeze of lemon juice. I've updated the recipe to suit my own tastes a little better—I reduced the amount of sugar, swapped the proportions of rum and brandy, and supplemented the tea with some apple cider. I definitely did not omit the fire step.

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