Sharing Nanny T’s St. John’s Punch Recipe.

Allow me a moment to move away from my usual blogging format, to share this little ditty with you.

If you read the blog post I wrote with my brother, Dave, you’ll remember hearing about one of our mothers’ favorite party tricks – her St. John’s Punch. This punch was straight out of the old school entertainment manual, where you poured all sorts of goodness into a big punch bowl and served it to your guests. In her heyday, my mother would bring out the punch bowl, make trays of food like shrimp cocktail with spicy homemade cocktail sauce, sliced roast beef with a dollop of horseradish, a jello mold or two, I’m certain, and delicious desserts like bite sized chocolate eclairs. To really get the vision, you need to picture the kind of spread that would be highlighted in Southern Living or Good Housekeeping magazine, only way less fancy.

Nancy (my mother) had other punch recipes… I distinctly remember one that had a container of pink sherbet floating in it, and another with a big block of ice that she’d created using an emptied plastic cool whip container filled with water and fruit and re-frozen in the freezer. These were the days when people RSVP’d for parties and actually showed up. They hired babysitters, put on a cocktail dress, and made a night of it.

Here’s the thing, I don’t even own a punch bowl. My style of entertaining is to offer bottles of wine, beer, and if you’re special, bourbon. In fact, if we’re being really honest, I don’t entertain all that often. There is an art to entertaining, and to really do it properly, you need the commitment from friends that they’ll actually attend. I have one girlfriend who does the entertaining thing VERY WELL, and because she always throws open her doors for a party, people attend. I aspire to be her.

The gear:

If you don’t own a punch bowl, you’ll need to get one. I’d guess you could go more modern by getting one of these drink dispensers, but that doesn’t quite give the same nostalgic kick. You’ll probably also want to make sure that everyone who imbibes has a designated driver. Why? This punch is deceptively strong (it includes almost 3 bottles of liquor!).

The recipe:

So, to kick off our 2021 summer season, I wanted to share my mother’s punch recipe. I thought it was a rum punch, but surprise – it’s a WHISKEY punch. YUM. This recipe was thankfully documented by my sister-in-law, Susan… and makes its way to us from Falls Church, Virginia to Rochester, New York, to Polson, Montana, and finally to Sammamish, Washington. I think it will make a great Memorial Day Weekend punch to kick off summer with a bang.