“What is a Cohasset Punch?”
“I don’t know. I drank one once and found out, and then I drank a second one and forgot it.”
—The New York Press, 1900

Cohasset Punch is a liqueur made from column and pot-still rums, wine, brandy, fruit juices and natural flavors, sweetened with cane sugar.

Cohasset Punch is now available at various locations throughout Illinois. See our product locator for a list of bars, restaurants, and stores. Sign up for email updates below to know when Cohasset Punch becomes available in your area.

Cohasset Punch has a rich, smooth flavor with a bright, refreshing acidity and notes of juicy stone fruit, citrus zest, and raisins, with a lingering finish suggesting dark chocolate and burnt sugar.

Traditionally, Cohasset Punch is stirred with ice and strained into a cocktail glass, with a slice of peach added for garnish. It can also be enjoyed simply on the rocks, with a mixer, or as an ingredient in more complex cocktails.

And if it’s named after a town in Massachusetts, why is it associated with Chicago?

Cohasset Punch was first created in the 1890s by Chicago bartenders Lewis Williams and Tom Newman. It was first served in Cohasset, Massachusetts at the estate of actor William H. Crane, which gave the drink its name. Williams & Newman began selling the drink in bottles by 1899, and it became a sensation at their Chicago bar and beyond. A liquor trade journal article published in 1902 went as far to say, “what the mint julep is to the South, Cohasset Punch is to Chicago.” For more information, see the History section.

After Williams & Newman retired, Cohasset Punch was made by the Ladner Bros., who called their bar “The Home of Cohasset Punch.” Production halted when the Ladner Bros. bar was demolished in 1986, but now after nearly a four decade hiatus the brand has been revived for a new generation of drinkers. For more information, see the History section. Sign up for email updates below to know when Cohasset Punch becomes available in your area.

Each bottle of Cohasset Punch since 1899 has included an image of Minot’s Ledge Light, the granite tower, copper-domed lighthouse that has stood off the coast of Cohasset, Massachusetts since 1860. The two boats pictured on the latest version of the label are the single-masted “catboat” Chloe and his single-screw steam yacht The Senator, both owned by actor William H. Crane in the 1890s when Cohasset Punch first debuted at his residence.

Cohasset Punch has been written about many times since it was first mixed in the 1890s. Newspapers and blogs have frequently published recipes on how supposedly to make it — most of them including some variation of rum, vermouth, lemon juice and orange bitters. Though tasty in its own right, this version is an early attempted copycat recipe, first published in The Complete Buffet Manual by J.E. Sheridan in 1901. Bottled Cohasset Punch is a brilliant ruby red color with a rich, complex flavor.