Hot Punch Recipe

To tell you the truth there is not one correct way of making punch. There's all kinds of flavors, and I guess that every little punch stall has there own secret recipe. Here some examples of flavors: berries, apple, orange, multivitamin, egg nogg, cherry, a.s.o. For the ones who haven't had one at the Vienna Christmas Market: If you buy one, it'll cost between € 2,50 (on campus) and € 3,50 (in front of city hall - that one's for the unknowing tourist) and you will be charged a cup deposit of € 2.

The main ingredients for our punch are tea, juices, spices, and most importantly: lots of sugar and Schnapps. :) The drink has to be hot, strong and sweet.

One of my favorite punches is made of berries.

Berries Punch:

5 cups of berry tea (best are strawberry and raspberry)
2 cups of water
3 cups of berry juice (we use black currant)
1 cup sugar (can be heated before putting the liquids in - caramelize if you wish)
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar or one scraped out vanilla bean
2 cups of (frozen) forest berry mix
3 cinnamon sticks
7 (I didn't count - I just grab a few) cloves
some nutmeg
some orange cests
a couple of pimentos
a few cardamom seeds
1/2 teaspoon of aniseed

LET THAT ALL BOIL AND THEN SIMMER FOR ABOUT 30 MINUTES

Now add the alcohol - but do not boil or simmer anymore, or the alcohol will evaporate. Keep the flame very low, to keep the punch warm.

What to put in:

2 cups of rum (dark)
1 cup of vodka (pure)
1/2 cup of "black vodka", the only one I know is Pushkin Black Sun
1 cup of cherry brandy

After you've added the last ingredients you can add some water if you think it's too strong or sweet, or you add some more sugar/alcohol. Usually we start off with the ingredients above and by the end of the evening the whole rum bottle would be gone. Hmmm...