The Rumshack Punch carries the name of Dick Bradsell, the London bartender behind the Espresso Martini, the Bramble, and much of the cocktail revival that reshaped British bars in the 1980s and '90s. Difford's Guide credits him with this recipe from the 1990s, though the drink itself hasn't surfaced independently in the Bradsell retrospectives and obituaries that cover his better-known work — it's a real name attached to a recipe that hasn't been corroborated outside Difford's own listing. What's on the page is unmistakably his era's style: a funky navy-and-overproof rum base pushed hard with peach and pineapple, built for volume rather than restraint.
Funky rum interlaced with peach, pineapple, lime, and pomegranate fruit. A monster, but balanced.
A Name Without a Paper Trail
Bradsell's confirmed catalog runs deep — the Wibble, the Treacle, the Russian Spring Punch, and the drinks that made Fred's Club and the Atlantic Bar & Grill destinations. The Rumshack Punch sits outside that documented list; Difford's Guide is, as far as this site could confirm, the only place the recipe and the attribution appear together. That doesn't make the drink less real or less worth pouring, but it means the '1990s, London' dating should be read as a single-source claim rather than a settled fact.
What is verifiable is the drink's construction: a navy-strength rum for backbone, a splash of unaged overproof Jamaican rum for funk, and a peach-and-pineapple punch base that reads like a Bradsell-era update on a Caribbean plantation punch — heavy fruit, a citrus spine, and enough rum to make the sweetness an afterthought.
The Spec
Two rums, two peach elements, a short pineapple-and-lime punch base, and a float of grenadine for color, shaken hard and fine-strained over fresh ice. The overproof rum is a small pour, but it's doing the heavy lifting.
Two rums, two jobs
The navy-strength rum (bottled around 54.5% ABV) gives the drink weight without pushing it into overproof territory on its own. The unaged, funky Jamaican overproof rum is the smaller pour but the louder flavor — it's what keeps this from reading as a straightforward fruit punch.
Peach, twice
White peach purée brings body and true fruit flavor; peach schnapps adds a sweeter, more candied top note in a smaller measure. Used together rather than as substitutes for each other, they read as one rounded peach flavor instead of two competing ones.
Bottom Line
Whatever the true paper trail, the Rumshack Punch is a well-built, funk-forward tiki punch — worth pouring for the drink, with the Bradsell credit taken as reported rather than proven.