Emily's Tea Party Fruit Punch

We don’t drink juice or soda in our house on a regular or even semi-regular basis.  That’ll have to be an entirely separate post.  I only buy juice or soda for special occasions, and only some special occasions at that.  A few weekends ago it was Robbie’s birthday, so I decide to make punch to go with our special birthday dinner.  I decided to go with Emily's tea party fruit punch.

A few weeks before Christmas, my friend Emily hosted a Christmas tea party.  While we did have a wide selection of teas from which to choose, she also had a delicious fruit punch.  I liked it and knew Robbie would love it so I asked her for the recipe.  The problem was, I only wrote it down mentally.  Ha!  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I’m still high on nursing hormones and am still experiencing pregnancy brain.  So of course I forgot the ingredients.  I did remember that she had mixed two types of juice concentrates and something fizzy.

Last month when I was hosting my Near to Nothing Pampered Chef party, I wanted to make her punch.  I sent her a message via the internet to get the exact ingredients.  Unfortunately, her response to me got lost in cyberspace.  So without her recipe, I guessed, using the parts of the recipe I did remember.  I ended up with a completely different punch, but still very good.

I will give both recipes here, starting with Emily’s original.  Both juices she used were Old Orchard 100% juice frozen concentrates (12 oz. each).  She served it in a pretty dispensing jar with ice and pomegranate seeds mixed in—it looked great!

Note:  when I bought the ingredients to take the photos for this post, they didn’t have apple cranberry so I substituted apple raspberry.  Take home lesson:  just mix two juices and add something fizzy.

Emily’s Fruit Punch

1 can apple cranberry juice concentrate

1 can apple cherry juice concentrate

6 cans club soda

Mix all ingredients in large pitcher.  Yield:  3 quarts  Cost:  about $3

If you don’t have a pitcher or beverage container for a full batch, just halve it.  All the photos here are of a half recipe.  And don’t worry about measuring to get exactly half a can of each—just eyeball it.  I poured roughly half of one juice in the pitcher, then filled the bottle full with the other juice.  Now I have one pre-mixed, ready to go in the fridge.  I then poured the remainder of the second juice into the pitcher and used that bottle to measure the soda.

I used Langer’s frozen juice concentrates (11.5 oz. each) and diet lemon lime soda.  I chose to use diet because the juice already has a lot of sugar.

Sumiko’s Fruit Punch

1 can apple juice concentrate

1 can kiwi strawberry juice concentrate

6 cans diet lemon lime soda

Mix all ingredients in large pitcher.  Yield:  3 quarts  Cost:  about $3