Sake to me Punch:

1 cup lemon oleo saccharum (recipe below)
4 cups Matcha Tea Syrup (recipe below)
1 L + 2 cups Hendricks Gin
12 oz Stirrings Ginger Liqueur
2 cups lemon juice
720 ml bottle Nigori Sake
750 ml bottle Prosecco

Garnish with lemon wheels

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In case any of you are looking for a punch recipe for your New Year’s Party, I’m getting one ready. I’ll be posting throughout the day, but you’ll need to get started now to be ready for tonight.

Step One: Make your ice molds

Typically, I make one large ice mold in a bundt pan, but I’m at a friend’s house and she can’t find hers (happens to the best of us) but has 11 spherical ice molds, so I’ve decided to use those instead. I’ve thinly sliced 6 lemons and one cucumber. In each spherical mold, I’ve stacked 3 lemon and 2 cucumber slices, alternating lemon-cucumber-lemon-cucumber-lemon.

Step two: Make your Lemon Oleo Saccharum

Lemon Oleo Saccharum recipe:

24 lemons
1 1/4 cup of sugar

Trim the peel off of the lemons, taking off as little of the white pith as possible. (Retain the lemons for juicing later.)  A vegetable peeler will make quick work of this. Collect the peels in a sturdy glass container, then pour 1 1/4 cups sugar over the peels and mash them together to release the oils from the peels until the sugar is thoroughly dampened. Cover and set aside (for at least 3 hours and up to one day) until you’re ready to mix your punch.

Get Started! I’ll post more details later. By the way, my New Year’s Resolution is to stop procrastinating.

Step 3: Make your Matcha Tea Syrup, then chill

Matcha Tea Syrup

5 tsp Matcha green tea powder
1 1/4 cup sugar

Place 5 teaspoons of matcha green tea powder in a medium-sized bowl. Heat 4 cups of water to just shy of boiling. Pour water into bowl with matcha and whisk until frothy. Add 1 cup of sugar and whisk until combined. Place Matcha tea syrup in freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

If not already chilled, put your bottles of Nigori Sake and Prosecco into the freezer to chill alongside your  Matcha Tea Syrup.

Step 4: Time to build your base!

Take out your punch bowl and add all of your ingredients except for the bottle of prosecco, which would be 1 cup lemon oleo saccharum, 4 cups Matcha Green Tea Syrup, 1 liter + 2 cups of Hendricks Gin, 12 oz Stirrings Ginger Liqueur, 2 cups lemon juice, and a 720 ml bottle Nigori Sake. Stir your ingredients then place the bowl in your deep freeze for 40 minutes or put a sealed bag of ice in it and place it in your refrigerator until chilled. You can hasten the process by sealing a ziploc bag full of ice and dropping it into the punch bowl.

Step 5: Serve it up!

Take your chilled punch base out of the fridge or deep freeze, add your chilled bottle of prosecco, place the ice molds in the punch bowl and the lemon wheels across the surface of your punch. Be sure to stir the punch before serving as the Nigori Sake and matcha tea powder tend to settle to the bottom of the bowl.

Now put out some glasses, grab a bunch of friends. Celebrate because any day that ends with a party and a group of friends is a gift. Bon Voyage, 2016. Let’s hope 2017 can crank out something better.