Milk-a-Punch

This traditional annual Alderney event takes place on the first Sunday of May when you are normally offered a complimentary glass of that famous milk punch in nearly every pub on the island.

The first Sunday in May was once known as Milk-a-Punch Sunday in all the channel islands. 

In Jersey young people would dress up in their best clothes, the girls in white, and head out from the town of St Helier into the countryside to milk cows, take eggs and make a milk punch. 

Writing in 1817 William Plees suggested that this practice continued in the early mornings through the month. In Guernsey a similar practice became somewhat rowdy and died out by the First World War, but in Alderney the tradition was maintained through providing free milk punch in the island bars on the first Sunday in May.