Winter Punch

Everyone in my family loves Sangria. It’s like a grown-up version of squash and we always end up drinking far too much. I tend to associate Sangria with summer but it’s a totally acceptable Christmas drink too! We’ll be spending New Years Eve eating tapas in our favourite Spanish restaurant and I know there’ll be a lot of Sangria involved. This winter punch is basically Sangria for Christmas. The best part of the holidays is drinking during the day with your grandparents, right?

You can use up whatever fruit you have in the house and your spirit of choice. Chuck in a bottle of mulled wine and you don’t have to mess around with adding spices yourself. I served it over ice – the weather’s so mild at the moment it seems inappropriate to be drinking hot drinks – but it’s yummy mulled too! Just be sure not to boil it and lose the flavour.

You will need:
1 bottle of mulled punch
1/2 cup Brandy
1/2 cup Cointreau
1/4 cup grenadine syrup
1 large orange
1 pear
1 lime
pine sprigs or rosemary for garnish

Step 1: Mix together all the liquids! If you’re using an alcoholic mulled wine then you’ll want to add a cup of orange juice or lemonade, unless you want your punch to be lethal.

Step 2: Chop up the fruit and mix these into your punch. You can either heat it on a medium heat or serve it cold over ice. Garnish with sprigs of rosemary or pine.

Step 3: Enjoy!

This is my favourite way to make a grown-up version of the throw-together-everything-in-the-cupboard punch I made as a student (fyi Guinness and Baileys do not go well, I found out the hard way) and it gets bonus points for being festive too. I hope all your holiday prep is going well and you’re looking forward to tomorrow, whatever activities you have planned!