The English explorers discovered it during their journey to the subcontinent in the 17th century.
How it was prepared
It had five ingredients and was called pañc, which is pronounced more like punch, and is the source of our word.
This word punch appears for the first time in printed works in English referring to India.
The word pañc meant "five". The Indian and Persian words for five originated from the proto-Indo-European word penk-e, which is also the root of the Greek word pente, the root of the pentagon.
The Persian word was panj, which can also be spelled punj. We also see these words in Punjab or Panjab, which is a region in northwestern India bordering the Indo River to the west and the Yamuna to the east. Panjab translates as "five rivers".
The pub punch
The punches served in taverns can contain any number of different ingredients and are prepared with rum, gin, whiskey, brandy, sherry, wine, or any other type of liquor. Some punches even used milk (Brandy Milk Punch remains a Christmas favorite).
The fruits included lemons, limes, pineapples, oranges, or guava jelly. Nutmeg was, more often than not, the spice used. Sometimes, spirits were added, which could serve to replace a spice.
As most school children know, punch, of course, has nothing to do with alcoholic beverages.
Instead, it is known as a very sweet mixture of fruit juices or flavors, especially tropical ones. This idea of punch began with Hawaiian Punch, which was developed in 1929.
Hawaiian Punch was a blend of seven concentrated fruit juices: pineapple, orange, passion fruit, apple, apricot, papaya, and guava; and was intended to be used as a fruit topping. All these fruits can be found in beautiful Guatemala.
