Check It Out: Spiced Cranberry Prosecco Punch

With New Year's right around the corner, if you are looking for a festive beverage, you need to check this out. It's not a recipe of mine, but one I want to point you in the direction of. I've had this concoction a couple of times at holiday fiestas hosted by my friends Dana and Mike. It is ridiculously addictive and usually requires them re-batching several times during the evening.

When I finally got around to asking Dana for the recipe, it turns out that she got it online from "Heather Christo: Eat Well, Live Free. Deliciously Allergy Free Recipes," a great website you should check out. She has really sexy food photos. I've paraphrased the original recipe here for your convenience, but for how-to photos go check it out on her webpage.

Spiced Cranberry Prosecco Punch (paraphrased from Heather Christo)
makes 20 servings

cranberry ice cubes
2 ice cube trays
fresh or frozen cranberries

Place the cranberries in the ice cube trays, fill with water and freeze until hard, at least 4 hours to overnight.

spiced punch
bag of party ice
4 cinnamon sticks
zest of 2 oranges
5 cups cranberry juice
3 cups orange juice*
2 bottles Prosecco
2 oranges (regular or blood), sliced
1 cup dark rum or bourbon (optional)

Put bag ice and cranberry ice cubes in a large punch bowl or punch dispenser. See photo above.

Add in cinnamon sticks, orange zest and orange slices, then pour in the cranberry and orange juices.

Next stir in the prosecco and mix well.

Voila! Delicious, delicious, tantalizingly addictive punch.

NOTE

*You can do orange juice with no pulp or some pulp.  If you are using a regular open punch bowl, it doesn't really matter, if you are using a punch dispenser as shown above, you may have some spigot blockage if you get an orange juice with too much pulp in it so heads up on that.