Pre-batching the simple syrup, lemon, and lime juice as a homemade sweet and sour mix is recommended (two parts syrup, two parts lemon, one part lime). Build over ice in a pint glass and stir.
As this recipe includes a whopping five ounces of liquor and is firmly in the Long Island Iced Tea category of highball strength, you may halve the recipe and/or dilute with more club soda. It is quite flavorful, and can easily be “watered down” without losing too much character.
Though I’ve seen a few tries to recreate the more famous cocktail in Simpsons lore — the “Flaming Homer” / “Flaming Moe” — I have attempted to reverse-engineer a different drink from the long-running show, “Flanders’ Planter’s Punch” from the Season 2 episode “The War of the Simpsons.” Though his attitude toward alcohol (specifically blackberry schnapps) grew more conservative through the course of the series, in this early episode Ned Flanders mixes up a highly potent cocktail that got Homer so drunk it would threaten his marriage.
In that particular episode, there’s a bit more to go on in terms of ingredients than with the Flaming Homer/Moe. After Homer complains that he tastes no alcohol in the drink, Ned informs him that the drink actually contains “three shots of rum, a jigger of bourbon, and just a little dab-a-roo of crème de cassis for flavor.” Assuming a shot here is one ounce, this would be 3 oz rum, 1½ oz bourbon, and let’s call a “dab-a-roo” ½ oz crème de cassis. Planter’s Punch is also a fairly specific category, so the drink would likely include a citrus element plus dilution with water or seltzer. As the scene takes place in the Simpsons’ home c. 1991, the citrus is likely in the form of bottled sweet and sour mix. Making your own sour mix with fresh ingredients can be easily done by combining two parts simple syrup, two parts lemon juice, and one part lime juice.
The final recipe I pieced together is 3 oz white rum (Plantation 3-Star), 1½ oz bourbon whiskey (Wild Turkey 101), ½ oz crème de cassis (Gabriel Boudier), plus 3 oz homemade sour mix and 3 oz club soda. This recipe seems to satisfy the two requirements of the drink based on information from the episode. It is, A.) delicious, and B.) far stronger than it tastes. What started out as a weird homage to a thirty-year-old cartoon may now be destined for my regular cocktail rotation.
The Simpsons, Season 2, Episode 20, “The War of the Simpsons” (1991)