Mom's Holiday Champagne Punch

Vintage pic found on Google

I've made Mom's holiday recipe for a champagne sherbet punch just once before. Mom would make it each December for her annual holiday open house through the late 70s and 80s. She just loved decorating the house for the holidays. As my household was a dual religious home, she would decorate for Christmas for Dad and Hanukkah for herself and us kids.

My family always celebrated both holidays. It was natural in my home! We'd have garland and white and blue lights, a small Christmas tree and our Menorah, stockings hung on the banister and dreidels spinning on the coffee table, candy canes and Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins), sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies and potato latkes. Mom would mix our home-made holiday ornaments with her collection of delicate Scandinavian wooden ornaments. It was a season of celebration and she just reveled in it.

By the way, my friends would always ask if we got gifts on both Hanukkah and Christmas and YES ... we did make out like bandits and got DOUBLE THE GIFTS. #bestofbothworlds #jealousmuch?

People say every thing old becomes new again and after my research on the sherbet punch, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many variations of recipes for it circulating on Google, food websites, and Pinterest. It definitely has a vintage feel to it. I surveyed a bunch of friends and each one had a memory of it being served at any number of holiday parties including birthday and cocktail parties or during Halloween, Christmas, or New Years parties. It's nice to see it has come back.

I think I'll be serving it for my family over Christmas Eve. The nice thing about it is you can make a non-alcoholic version of it and then one with as much Champagne as you want. I will do the latter of course. Use the cheapy sparkling wine though. You don't want to use your Dom Perignon or even Veuve Clicquot for the sherbet punch. LOL


 Holiday Champagne Sherbet Punch 

Holiday Orange Champagne Sherbert Punch -Pinterest
by Abby Deeds

-Champagne or a sweet sparking wine (I think we used Cold Duck or Andre, the cheap stuff!)
-Ginger ale 
-Sherbet

Add sherbet last in scoops.

That's it, no more directions. Okaaay. I am kinda guessing my Mom eye-balled it. LOL At the time, Mom would've used a cheap sparkling wine like Andre or Cold Duck. Cold Duck was a sweet red sparkling wine I remember from the 70s. It should be a sweeter sparkling wine though. There is no flavor of sherbet specified but I remember Mom using orange. Hence, the pic to the right for illustrative purposes. :)

Now for those that just cannot stand having a vague recipe based on tasting as you go, here is one for a New Year's Champagne Punch that I found online from Food.com.


Raspberry Champagne Sherbet Punch

Prep time: 10 minutes
Serves: 8

-750 ml bottle of Champagne
-1 quart raspberry sherbet
-2 liters ginger ale
-1 pint thawed frozen raspberries

Mix all except for sherbet, then add it to the top (in scoops).

You could use strawberry sherbet and add strawberries, orange sherbet and add sliced oranges, or make it with rainbow sherbet! Some people add orange juice as well. As I stated before, you can make it non-alcoholic with just ginger ale or Sprite for a sweeter flavor.

Bloggers NOTE:  I did search for some family photos of the holiday open houses that Mom and Dad had but alas, have not found any yet. The pics above are not owned by me and I am using them for purely illustrative purposes.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AP Cake, A PA Dutch Recipe

Image
"AP Cake" A couple of years back, I had a blog project named “Cooking Through Family”. You can check out the recipes I made on the labels tab of the same name on the front of my blog page. I made about 85% of my Mom’s, Dad’s family, and Mom’s family recipes learning about my family as I went through each recipe, remembering our fun time, etc. The only ones I did not make were the baking ones which included the cakes, cookies, bars and pies.  The Clutzy Baker I don't know why but I've always had an unnatural fear of baking but it  always seemed so scientific. Now I am not talking about the Betty Crocker box cakes, brownie mixes, or chocolate chip cookie dough "rolls". I am talking about baking from scratch. Almost anyone can spoon out cookie dough and shove it in the oven for 30 minutes.  In school, I’ve always been better with the arts, literary and history classes rather than sciences or mathematics. I always meant to get back to the baking recipes and I th...
Read more

A Monster Allergic Reaction: Erythritol

Image
Marc with Hives (Cabbage Patch link) By chance, I completed this blog post on Mother's Day so I guess I will put it up dedicated to my dear Mother Abby. Not a day goes by where I don't think about you, miss you, and love you. And I guess I will thank my Mother for passing on a whole mess of allergies to me, LOL. It's not so bad, I live with them. Sometimes as you will see below, a new allergy will crop up and be added to my list. As my Mom once said to me, "Your allergies? Well you can thank your Mother for that one!" A couple years ago, my doctor recommended I stop drinking so much coffee as well as those energy drinks. I drank the energy drinks fairly often like at least once every couple days. It didn't matter the brand, just whatever was on sale or available. He had stated that he thought there was nothing beneficial to them from a nutritional standpoint and he'd rather have me drink my coffee instead. I did not completely give up my coffee bu...
Read more

Favorite Kitchen Tools

Image
"Voile" Pasta Measurer by Alessi Throughout the years, I have acquired several favorite cooking tools as gifts or through my own discoveries. I am always on the lookout for cool kitchen gadgets. Mom's favorite kitchen tool was the wooden spoon. When we stepped out of line, she would grab it and threaten to paddle us with it. She was kidding/half serious most of the time but I think I remember once or twice when I got the spoon to my butt for being a bad kid. Mom swore by wooden kitchen tools and to this day, I have plenty in my kitchen as well. The first favorite kitchen tool is the "Voile" Alessi Pasta Measurer. Alessi is an incredible Italian design company. Check out more of their wares at www.alessi.com . It was a gift from my father and stepmom Martha. Each circle in the pasta measurer is for a different amount of pasta. It was truly a perfect gift from the two of them as it encompassed Martha's passion for the kitchen and cooking, and ...
Read more