I hope some of you folks are on tonight! We've decided to forgo the sodas for Christmas day and we'd like to make a cold punch and a hot cider for the event instead. For the hot cider I was planning to put apple cider, sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves in a crockpot and just let it steep and keep warm all day. And for the punch, i found one that is Cranberry Juice, Pineapple juice, sugar and gingerale. Some variations add frozen strawberries and lime or lemon juice too. Do these sound good? If you went to someone's house on Christmas day and they didn't have soda's would you be offended? I'm not saying I would...I am just making sure if we do "christmassy" drinks vs. standard party fair, that we would be okay. THOUGHTS? Better recipes?
My mom makes a hot punch similar to that except she just pours red hots in store bought apple cider. It's yummy! I wouldn't be offended if there weren't sodas. If the punch wasn't my thing, I'd ask for a glass of water. I guess it would depend on who was coming if I had something else- like my BIL drinks only Diet Coke.
My husbands family puts Apple Cider, slices of oranges, lemon slices, cinnamon sticks, allspice, cloves, nugmeg gosh does it smell good We are also making homemade egg nog. Because I am lactose I can't drink the one at the store so I have to make my own with raw milk and cream and with our eggs comes out soooo good and I can drink it! Sam
So.... For the punch they had Pomegranate Cranberry - I thought that'd be a neat twist. I'm thinking I'll mix the sugar with lime juice and add it too...extra twist. I can never just follow a recipe! LOL!!! Question on the cider - cloves were REALLY expensive...sorry not paying $6 for less than an oz of something...forget it. I have ground cloves...could I use like a 1/4 or 1/2 tsp instead? I got the cinnamon sticks (I can't have red hots b/c of the gluten thing - most of them have wheat starch in them). thanks!
It sounds delicious to me!!! I like it when people have something different than the usual drinks. Patty
