Blitzen Punch

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Holiday entertaining is in full force now that Thanksgiving is over; at least it is for us.  We are thinking about Christmas as well as New Year’s celebrations, what to serve, and what to drink.  We kicked things off over the Thanksgiving weekend with this fun holiday punch, which we fondly named after one of Santa’s reindeer, the Blitzen Punch.  After all, he is probably the one reindeer who doesn’t get that much recognition!

Templeton Rye reached out to us about working together on some holiday cocktails, particularly a holiday punch.  Since we are huge Rye fans we jumped on board, I mean who doesn’t love punch!  Punches are plain fun in our opinion, and when you serve one to your guests, they are always smiling.  Something fun and sparkly about a punch bowl filled with holiday cheer!  Don’t you agree?

We used the essence of winter with this punch recipe by using pure 100% cranberry juice as the base;  do not use the sweetened or blended versions.  You want full-on cranberry tartness.  Then we warmed the punch-up with a star anise simple syrup, the acid came from Meyer Lemon juice, and the punch was a good ole bottle of Templeton Rye The Good Stuff.  The Good Stuff is warm with hints of caramel and allspice, which pairs nicely with tart cranberries.

Definitely a crowd-pleasing Rye as well as a festive holiday punch to serve well into the holidays.

Happy Holidays!

 

 

Yield: 8 cups

Blitzen Punch

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Cranberries and lemons are frozen to make a festive ice ring for the base of this fun punch. A simple syrup of star anise, sugar and water are mixed with rye to give this holiday Blitzen Punch a kick!

Prep Time 1 day

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 1 day 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 Meyer lemons, thinly sliced
• 12 ounces fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 4-star anise
• 3 cups pure 100% cranberry juice
• 2 cups Templeton Rye
• 2 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice

Instructions

The day before making the punch pour the cranberries and lemon slices into a metal bundt pan, then fill halfway with water. Place in the freezer to freeze into an ice ring.

Mix together the sugar, water and star anise together, bring to a boil and cook until the sugar dissolves, about 10 minutes. Cool. Pour into a glass jar and place into the refrigerator.

The day of the party mix together the cranberry juice, rye, fresh lemon juice and the star anise simple syrup. Stir.

Place the ice ring into a punch bowl and pour in the punch.


Serve.


Drink.

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 ** disclaimer Templeton Rye supplied us with a bottle of Rye and compensated us for ingredients, but did not require us to write about it.  This write-up and all opinions belong to us.