Champagne Punch Perfect for a Christmas or New Years Eve Party

Several folks have asked for the punch recipe I mentioned in our last Party Planning post.
So here ya go...

The Recipe:

Champagne Holiday Punch

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
2 cups cranberry juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 bottle champagne (Korbel Brut works great)
Small amount of Grand Marnier (or any orange liqueur you prefer)
Red sugar
Green sugar

In a saucepan, bring water, sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves to boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Discard cinnamon and cloves.
Cool to room temperature and pour into a large pitcher.
Add cranberry juice and pineapple juice.
Chill in fridge until ready to serve.
At serving time, add 1 bottle of chilled champagne.


Right click on pic below to save it to your computer:

If having a party, I recommend at least doubling, tripling or quadrupling this recipe, because it's a huge hit and folks keeping coming back for more. When I had around 25 guests for a neighborhood cookie party, we went through four batches, with none left over!

When serving, put red sugar, green sugar and Grand Marnier in a three-part dish or in three separate bowls. I use this divided dish and it works out really well. Dip the rim of the champagne glass into the Grand Marnier, then into one of the sugars. Then pour the punch into the glass.




You can serve it from a punch bowl and ladle it into the glass, but since the opening of a champagne glass is so small, this can be pretty messy with the punch ending up running down the sides of the glass. I found it's much easier to just pour it from a pitcher.




Or, if you have a beverage server similar to the one below, that will work well, too.




Your guests will love the look of the sugar-rimmed glasses.

For large parties, I love to use little charms around the stem of the glass. I have a limited number of champagne glasses so it helps my guests keep up with their glass.




For a New Year's Eve party or a birthday party, I like to dip the rims of the glasses in nonpareils, instead of the the colored sugars.







I've placed the glass in front of the paper towels so you can get a better look...

Doesn't this just say, FUN?

Enjoy!