Step Back in Time and Enjoy These Old Fashion Beverages

Remember when you enjoyed school dances, hayrides, slumber parties, etc with your high school friends. Seems we always enjoy a good punch or hot cider, etc. The recipes in this article are from the days long ago that I remember. Try the Hot Spiced Punch Imperial or the Spiced Tomato Juice, two favorites in my memories.

Hot Spiced Punch Imperial

This punch has been a part of my life for so long, I don’t even remember when I first used it.

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 quart medium strength tea
• 4 sticks cinnamon
• 6 whole cloves
• 2 quarts orange juice
• 2 cups lemon juice
• Thin slices of oranges and/or lemons for garnish

Combine the sugars with the tea, cinnamon sticks, cloves and boil for 5 minutes. Heat the orange and lemon juices to the boiling point and mix in with the tea mixture. Pour into a pretty punch bowl. Float the orange and/or lemon slices on top to make it pretty.

Note: You can substitute a quart of apple cider for the tea and reduce the granulated sugar to 1 cup, if desired.

Makes about 30 punch cup servings.

Spiced Tomato Juice

Growing up in Southern Indiana farm country, we always had lots of tomatoes. In the summer, we would go out to the garden and pick tomatoes fresh for our meals. When we had more tomatoes than we could eat, which was every year during the best part of the growing season, my mom and my grandmother would can them and also can homemade tomato juice. Oh, man, that stuff was sooo good! We weren’t allowed to “drink it all up,” as we used it all winter in soups and sauces. But I loved getting a quart of tomato juice out and spicing it up for a delicious juice. Ah, the memories!

• 3 quarts tomato juice
• 3 tablespoons sugar (Splenda for me now as an old gal diabetic!)
• 1/2 tsp salt (This old gal now goes with only 1/4 tsp!)
• 1/2 tsp celery salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt (This old gal now uses garlic powder!)
• 1/2 tsp onion salt (This old gal now uses onion powder!)

In a large sauce pan, combine the tomato juice with the sugar, stirring to mix well. Stir in the salts. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Simmer juice until it reaches the consistency you desire.

Approximately 12 servings.

P.S.  This juice is also good to use in chili, vegetable soup, spaghetti sauce, etc.

Enjoy!

The Author:

I have a large collection of vintage recipes I enjoy sharing on my blog at http://grandmasvintagerecipes.blogspot.com