You drink poncha the way the locals do: fresh, no ice, standing at a tasca counter, with a dentinho on the side, and you know it's authentic when you pull a face after drinking it. Everything else (the bottled stuff, the sugar-rimmed hotel versions, the ice) is for tourists.
I’m a tour guide here, and half my job on the Tasca Tour is teaching people these unwritten rules. Here they are, free of charge.
First: know what a tasca is
A tasca is where locals meet. It’s the Madeiran equivalent of the English pub or the American bar: food, drink, and its own culture. Some still have a merceria attached, a small grocery store, because that’s what many of them were before the supermarkets came.
Two honest warnings. Most tascas don’t really speak English, and if you walk in as an outsider, you might feel like an outsider. And don’t judge these places by their Google listing. A lot of the best ones don’t even have one. One of my favourite poncha stops is a place that’s been there 50 years; the owner is retiring and it’s about to become an apartment block. You’d never have found it online.
So how do you find them? Ask locals. Your taxi driver on the way from the airport: “Where’s your favourite tasca?” Your Airbnb host. The hotel reception. That one question gets you further than any top-ten list.
The authenticity test
I’ve said it in a dozen videos and I’ll say it again: if it’s a real poncha, you drink it and you pull a face afterwards. A good poncha has to have a little bit of an aggressive taste. You feel the back part of your eyes start to burn just a little.
The famous places influencers send people to make a poncha that’s too nice, too sweet. You drink it and it’s just “oh, that’s delicious.” Nothing wrong with delicious. But it’s not quite it. Watch the people at the counter: if they pull a face, order there.
Ice or no ice?
No. It’s like a whiskey: you don’t want to spoil it with water. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
That said, plenty of people take it on ice in the summer when it’s hot, and I’m not going to fight them. The fishermen who invented the drink certainly weren’t carrying ice on the boat.
The dentinho rule
Order a round of drinks in a proper tasca and a little plate appears. That’s the dentinho, literally “small tooth”, Madeira’s answer to tapas. Usually it’s lupini beans (tremoços, the yellow beans nobody can identify), peanuts, or a few toothpicks of slow-cooked meat from a pot behind the counter. The tradition started as a way to keep the men at the bar and not at home.
You don’t order a dentinho. It comes with the drinks. If they know you, it gets better: the special stuff, the secret stuff. That’s another reason to walk in with a local.
And a genuine local move: wash your poncha down with a beer. The poncha can be a little aggressive, remember.
Be patient
Service in Madeira takes longer. You might wait five or ten minutes before anyone even says hello. It’s not rudeness. Usually everything’s made with love and care. Be patient, don’t wave your arms around, and it helps enormously to have a local with you to get you in, get you ordered and get the little extras.
Don’t buy bottled poncha
Please. It’s full of preservatives. Real poncha is made fresh. The money you’d spend on a bottle of poncha buys you the real thing at a counter.
Want to take poncha home? Buy a bottle of Madeiran rum instead (all sorts of strengths and flavours, plastic or glass, from the airport or anywhere in town) and make it fresh where you live. As I said in one livestream: never, ever buy bottled poncha, unless you want to give it as a gift to someone you don’t like.
Which rum? Any clear (not aged) Madeiran agricultural rum. Never waste aged rum in a poncha: that’s the good stuff, you don’t mix it with juice and honey. I prefer the 40% clear rum from Porto da Cruz [JEFF: you called it “the Branca, the 970”; confirm exact brand name before we print it]. Cachaça from Brazil is made a similar way and can work at a pinch, but stick with Madeiran rum.
So where’s the best poncha in Funchal?
Honest answer: locals don’t drink a lot of poncha in Funchal city centre. The real poncha culture lives in the outskirts and the villages: Câmara de Lobos, where the drink was born; the Santo da Serra farmers’ market on a Sunday morning, where the grandmother at [JEFF: the stall name, heard as “Tasca da Avó” in the market video, confirm] pours the best poncha in the market. My theory is she drinks a lot of poncha herself, which is why she’s so well preserved.
That said, when I’m in town:
- Madeira Rum House (old town): my favourite poncha in Funchal, sticking my neck out.
- Bar Número Dois [JEFF: confirm name, the Zona Velha bar you rate for poncha]: old town, solid.
- [JEFF: the busy Friday-afternoon place you called “the Poncha King” in the March 2023 livestream; confirm the actual name]: go for the crowd and the vibe, not for the best poncha of your life.
And the truly good tasca stops? Those are the ones I keep off the internet on purpose. They’re on the tour.