The Playboy Punch Bowl

The Playboy Punch BowlMany Holidays ago it was the Custom at New York's then-posh Hotel Astor for bar stewards to walk down the line emptying every open bottle in sight, including wines, whiskeys and liqueurs into a mammoth punch bowl. The Astor's punchmakers always compounded a delectable mixture by following an old axiom of bartending: You may use anything from arrack to zinfandel, ad-libbing as you please, as long as you're loyal to the accepted balances between potent and mild, sweet and tar...