As little girls in 1990s Trinidad, my younger sister and I would stand around in awe whenever the Osterizer made its way from on top of the kitchen cupboards to the counter. Our father never cooked, but when it came to making Peanut Punch, he was the one in the kitchen. The Peanut Punch we typically drank as kids came from store-bought, 250-milliliter cartons that we would take to school in our lunch kits, but his was made from scratch. Watching him throw ingredients into the blender always felt like being backstage at a show. These days, in my Brooklyn studio apartment, I make my own version almost every morning for breakfast.
Peanut Punch is a silky, cold, blended drink made creamy by pulverizing raw or roasted peanuts (or peanut butter, for convenience) with cow’s milk, sweetened condensed milk and sometimes sugar and bitters. It is primarily a health drink, sometimes made with nutrient-rich ingredients like sea moss, channa (also known as chickpeas) or beets, and referred to as “thing for the back,” or “strong back,” as the Jamaicans call it—an aphrodisiac that would make men strong and virile. Peanut Punch can also be a meal replacement, a sweet treat or a way to put some meat on your bones, considering its high protein, carb and calorie content.
Like all traditional Caribbean food and drinks, there is no fixed recipe. Across the Caribbean, it’s made at homes, bars and by streetside punch vendors (known as punchmen) who customize the drink according to the drinker’s preference or the maker’s touch.
In some islands, the health beverage transforms into a cocktail. In Dominica, for example, local favorite spirits like Baileys, Ponche Kuba, Amarula and Disaronno can be found in the mix. St. Lucia, meanwhile, often favors a heavy pour of spiced rum, which echoes the drink’s vanilla and cinnamon notes, or Nutz’n Rum, a locally made, spiced peanut rum cream.
Baidawi Assing, Trini food expert and director of Eat Ah Food, fondly remembers the Peanut Punch made at Harry’s Punch in Trinidad in the 1980s. Back then, the well-known punch cart chain was just a single cart in Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, operating with two blenders. Late at night, after partying in town, Assing would order a 32-ounce cup of Peanut Punch made with a pour of Guinness. (The stout has a long history in the Caribbean, and offers a special version of the beer catering to local tastes, called Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.) Guinness, he says, adds a “punch” to the punch, and also injects some bitterness that contrasts with the drink’s sweetness while emboldening the warm and woody flavors. Texturally, the foamy beer thins and smooths out the thick punch. Assing’s recipe for the drink takes inspiration from that serve.
In Jamaica, meanwhile, Peanut Punch often gets spiked with a mix of Wray & Nephew’s overproof white rum and Guinness or is made with Roots wine, a Rastafarian drink made from fermented herbs. Jamaican food expert Andrew “Chef Irie” Sinclair says another common riff, made with Red Bull, is called “Tear Up Sheet” (the name is a sexual innuendo). Punchmen in Kingston pre-make their batches and serve drinks from buckets or bottle them to sell at Montego Bay markets out of coolers. Jamaicans, Sinclair says, can knock back several cups of the drink. “It ain’t no meal replacement there.”
The exact origins of Peanut Punch are not well-documented. What I do know is that the drink has long been a staple in Rastafarian ital cuisine, where it is made without dairy or alcohol, and Peanut Punch–like drinks have existed in many cultures that have been a part of the Caribbean’s complex history of migration. From Indigenous groups in central Brazil, who ground peanuts with maize to make a drink, to Nigerians, who make a similar creamy peanut porridge called kunu gyada, to East Indians, who brought five-ingredient punches called paanch to the Caribbean in the 1800s, the drink seems to have roots in many places.
In my personal history, I don’t know my family recipe for Peanut Punch, or if there even is one. My father passed away a year ago, so I can’t ask him for his method. The Peanut Punch I make in New York in 2024 is a far cry from his in 1993—there is no condensed milk, or dairy for that matter, and I add a banana, while he used sugar. I don’t freshly grate my nutmeg. The differences over time and place are to be expected, though: This is a drink that you can add almost anything but the kitchen sink to, with a history that spans centuries. Two punches are rarely created equal.
