"Caribbean Punch" is one of the most generic names in the cocktail world — it's been slapped on countless unrelated home-bar rum punches and even bottled products, with no single recipe owning the name. The specific Caribbean Punch documented here is the one cataloged on Difford's Guide's own Tiki/Tropical directory: overproof white rum, amaretto, coconut rum liqueur, a thread of Galliano, lemon, pineapple, and grenadine. Difford's page itself carries no inventor credit, no bar, and no date — it reads as a database entry rather than a piece of cocktail history, and no independent source (Kindred Cocktails, PUNCH, Liquor.com, or print) documents this exact combination elsewhere. We're saying that plainly rather than inventing a backstory for it.
Red in colour and innocent looking, this flavoursome drink sure packs a punch.
Difford's Guide tasting noteA Name Without a Paper Trail
Type "Caribbean Punch" into a search bar and you'll get dozens of unrelated results — party-size rum punches, bottled pre-mixes, blog recipes with nothing in common but the name and a Caribbean-adjacent color palette. This particular seven-ingredient build is the one that shows up on Difford's Guide's own Tiki/Tropical Top 100 listing, and Difford's — normally careful to credit a bar or a book when one exists — attaches no creator to it. That's a meaningful absence, not an oversight we're glossing over.
What the recipe does have is a clear internal logic: a funky overproof rum backbone, amaretto and coconut liqueurs layered in for tropical sweetness, a thin thread of Galliano for anise-vanilla lift underneath, lemon to sour it, pineapple to lengthen it, and grenadine for color and a touch more sweetness.
The Spec
Shaken hard with ice and strained over crushed ice in a tall glass — enough dilution to tame the overproof rum without losing the drink's punch (in both senses).
Why overproof rum
With five other liqueurs and juices in the glass, a standard-proof rum would get lost entirely. A funky, high-proof unaged rum is the only thing in this recipe with enough presence to carry through to the finish.
Galliano's supporting role
A quarter-ounce is a whisper, not a headline — it's there to add a vanilla-anise undertone beneath the pineapple and coconut, not to announce itself as a distinct ingredient.
Bottom Line
No pedigree, no named bar, not even Difford's own site claiming credit — just a well-built, uncredited rum punch that happens to be genuinely good at being a rum punch.