Spiced Holiday Punch for Everyone

By Rebekah Peppler

Published November 29, 2023

  • David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
1 hour, plus overnight resting
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
45 minutes, plus overnight resting
Rating
4(227)
Comments
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Start with a spiced, citrus base, made with lemon peels muddled with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, star anise, black peppercorns and tea leaves. Then, make a holiday drink your way. If you choose to spike it, reach for a favorite spirited bottle. Gin leans your drink refreshingly botanical, while whiskey feels a bit boozier and plays nicely off the base’s warming spices. If you want to make a nonalcoholic drink, simply add soda water, tonic and, if you like, a few dashes of Angostura bitters. (Note that, while the bitters lend a nice layer of flavor and depth, they do contain a small amount of alcohol, so if you’re abstaining just leave them out.) The point here is to make a drink you want to drink — and for your friend, partner, cousin or parent to make the drink they want to drink.

Featured in: For a Memorable Holiday Party, Personalize the Punch

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Ingredients

Yield:About 10 (5-ounce) nonalcoholic or spirited drinks

FOR THE SPICED HOLIDAY PUNCH BASE

  • 6 to 8 lemons

  • ½ cup brown sugar

  • 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

  • 4 whole cloves

  • 4 whole allspice berries

  • 2 whole star anise

  • 2 whole cinnamon sticks

  • 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

  • 2 teaspoons loose-leaf oolong, black or green tea leaves

  • ¼ cup fresh orange juice

FOR THE SPIRITED SPICED HOLIDAY PUNCH

  • Ice

  • 1 ounce Spiced Holiday Punch Base

  • 1 ounce spirit, such as bourbon, rye, Cognac or gin

  • 3 to 4 dashes Angostura bitters

  • 1 ounce club soda, chilled

  • 2 ounces dry sparkling wine, chilled

  • Lemon or orange wheels or a cinnamon stick, or both, for garnish

FOR NONALCOHOLIC SPICED HOLIDAY PUNCH

  • Ice

  • 1 ounce Spiced Holiday Punch Base

  • 3 to 4 dashes Angostura bitters (optional; see Tip)

  • 2 ounces soda water, chilled

  • 2 ounces dry tonic water, chilled

  • Lemon or orange wheels or a cinnamon stick, or both, for garnish

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Make the punch base: Using a peeler, peel 4 of the lemons and place the peels in a medium bowl. Reserve the peeled lemons. Add the sugar and salt to the peels and use a muddler or the end of a rolling pin to work them into the peels until the peels start to turn slightly translucent, about 2 minutes.

  2. Step 2

    Heat a medium skillet over medium-high. When the pan is hot, add the cloves, allspice berries, star anise, cinnamon sticks and peppercorns. Heat, shaking the pan often, until the spices are fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Watch carefully so the spices do not burn. Add the spices directly to the lemon peel mixture, along with the tea leaves, and muddle for another minute, crushing the spices and tea leaves into the peel mixture, then set aside at room temperature for 8 hours and up to 24.

  3. Step 3

    The next day, add ¼ cup hot water to the citrus mixture, stir gently to dissolve the sugar and set aside to steep for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, juice the reserved lemons. (You should have about ¾ cup lemon juice; you may need to juice 1 or 2 of the remaining lemons.) Add the fresh lemon and orange juices to the spice-sugar mixture, then strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer, pressing on the solids. (You should have a scant 1 ¼ cups.) Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make your drinks. (The base can be stored, in the refrigerator, for up to 1 month.)

  4. Step 4

    For a Spirited Spiced Holiday Punch, fill a lowball glass with ice, and add 1 ounce Spiced Holiday Punch Base, 1 ounce spirit and 3 to 4 dashes Angostura bitters. Stir gently to combine. Top with 1 ounce soda water and 2 ounces sparkling wine. Finish with a citrus wheel or cinnamon stick, or both.

  5. Step 5

    For a Nonalcoholic Spiced Holiday Punch, fill a lowball glass with ice, and 1 ounce Spiced Holiday Punch Base and, if using, 3 to 4 dashes Angostura bitters. Top with 2 ounces soda water and 2 ounces tonic water. Stir gently to combine and finish with a citrus wheel or cinnamon stick, or both.

Tip

  • Most bitters have a small amount of alcohol and, while very diluted, make sure whomever you’re making a drink for is OK with this addition, or skip entirely.

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Ratings

4 out of 5
227 user ratings
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Comments

Annie

And for a lazier version, use your kitchen aide mixer (a tip I saw on another NYT recipe) to do your citrus peel, spice, and sugar muddling.

Madysen

An absolute crowd pleaser at my Hanukkah party— great with cachaça and becherovka as well! I wrote the recipe out on a card and let guests make their own, and folks had a blast mixing their own cocktails and playing around with the measurements. A great conversation starter and SO delicious!

Su

I adore this idea. I'll also be making it with no-caffeine rooibos tea to be sure that the results are evening-appropriate! Thanks for the inspiration!

Vic

This was delicious. I only mixed it with Cremant, and it was really tasty and a crowd pleaser!

Chef Pizza

I must echo previous commenters: lots of citrus flavor here, but not much spice. I suspect that the flavor of the base would be improved (or brought closer to what many of us were expecting) by using ground spices in place of the whole spices called for in the recipe. Ground spices can be toasted in the same manner as whole spices, and the higher surface-area-to-volume ratio might help their flavor to diffuse more readily than the whole spices. I’ll try this eventually. In the meantime, it’s a tasty enough drink as is.

Jojo

@Annie thanks for the protip! tripled the recipe. worked like a charm!

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