BEQUIA —Making rum punch is an art form: there is no one perfect way to do it. (That’s without mentioning the perfect planteur, rum punch’s French Caribbean cousin.)

Generally speaking, the further south you go, the more bitter the rum punch. To put it another way, the closer you get to Trinidad, the more likely you are to find Angostura bitters in your rum punch.

Of course, that’s not to say we don’t like bitters in rum punch — it’s that there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way.

At the beautiful Bequia Beach Bar in the Grenadines, we found rum punch perfection.

This punch was something of a hybrid — all the sweetness of the northern Caribbean and the Bahamas, with just the right amount of bitters.

Like most of the best rum punches, the recipe for this one is secret (except for the bitters, of course, which were acknowledged after a bit of prodding).

Then again, when you’re staring out at that view of Friendship Beach and the sea, the rum is really secondary.

— CJ