Punch Recipes

Aunt Pat's Christmas Punch

Ingredients:
1 quart lime sherbet
1 (2 liter) bottle cranberry juice
1 (2 liter) bottle ginger ale
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Scoop one half of the lime sherbet into a large punch bowl. Add about half of the cranberry juice and half of the ginger ale, and the lemon juice. Stir to combine. Add remaining sherbet, cranberry juice, and ginger ale. Serve immediately.

Royal Hibernian Punch

Adapted from "Punch: the Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl" by David Wondrich (Perigee Books).

The day before your Punch party, make a block of ice by placing a quart bottle of water in the freezer.

Peel 3 lemons, trying not to get any of the white pith, and muddle the peels with 3/4 cup superfine sugar. Let sit for an hour or two, and then add 3/4 cup strained lemon juice and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add to this 1½ cups Sandeman Rainwater Madeira and stir.

This is your "shrub."

Pour the shrub into a clean, 750-ml bottle.

Add enough water to the bottle to fill it, seal and refrigerate.

Fill another clean, 750-ml bottle with filtered water and refrigerate that, too. All this may be done the day before your party - or even longer; the Shrub will keep for several days.

To serve, pour the bottle of shrub, the bottle of water and one 750-ml bottle of Jameson's 12 or Redbreast Irish whiskey into a gallon Punch bowl, add your block of ice, and grate nutmeg over the top.

Serves 20.