New Years hangover
Keep the party going with punch
By Tim Protzman tprotzman@sbcglobal.net
This New Year’s, I went to bed early.
I always wanted to go to New York on New Year’s Eve, but I have no desire to stand shoulder to shoulder in Times Square. But somebody goes. Each year they host about one million people, although I’ve never met anyone who’s admitted they stood out in the cold for six hours to watch the ball drop. You would think people would be proud to admit they’ve been, and you would think they’d even lie about it to make themselves seem cool, like all the ex-hippies and Baby Boomers who falsely claim to have been at the original Woodstock. Maybe it’s too geeky, like camping out overnight for the latest Harry Potter book or a PlayStation 3. People do it; they just don’t admit they do it.
My New Year’s Eves tend to get a little wild: contra dancing in Connecticut; dog sitting and drinking in Amherst, Mass.; drunken revelries in Boston, a city where armies of inebriated zombies lurch through the streets, several times a year — New Year’s Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, Opening Day at Fenway, Patriot’s Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween and the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving all bring out this dark army of the unsober. We professional drinkers call them “amateur nights” because if you’re a wino like me, you don’t need a holiday to imbibe. A simple phone call from a friend who says, “I’m opening a jeroboam [a large bottle that holds three liters or four regular sized bottles of wine] of 1991 Claude Dugat Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru Burgundy [$944] tonight and I’m going out of town tomorrow, could you come over and help me drink it?”… is all it takes to turn any night into New Year’s Eve. And it’s not like anything good’s ever come from any of my New Year’s Eves. There was the woman in that bar in Rutland with the thick Vermont accent who was pretty and fun until she started telling me about the “who-er” that lived in the apartment above her. It took several attempts and many rounds of “huh? What did you say? And I can’t hear you over the music!” Until I finally deciphered that she was trying to tell me a “woman of the evening” lived in the apartment above her. And who says there’s not a little Babylon in Rutland?
And finally there was the Case of the Afghan Stranger. It was on a tobacco farm in North Carolina. The farm technologist was a friend of ours, and had started her first job after graduating from University of Connecticut with a B.S. in Agricultural Technology. (Who says U. Conn. is only known for basketball?)
She got a huge loft over the tractor garage. She had 30 people in the place. After a night of beer and cinnamon schnapps we went to bed, on either side of her brother Sean, who was covered with an afghan blanket. We woke up the next morning and realized that it wasn’t Sean peeking out the little crocheted holes; it was a total stranger who had been trapped under the quilt the whole night. The only good thing was nobody drove their car that night.
It seems one of my favorite New Year’s Eves involved no alcohol at all. It started with a sled ride through the woods for my 18-month-old son, hot chocolate and a bath, followed by a long winter nap. The hot chocolate kept him up ’til midnight, but I was in bed by 8 p.m.
It’s likely that unless you bought the New Year’s bottle, your Champagne was only so-so. In the last two years I enjoyed exactly two champagnes — 1990 Pol Roget Vintage Brut ($72.49) and Wycliff, a Californian sparkling wine that’s sold to restaurants and hotels only. I liked it because it was crisp and slightly sweet, like a good ginger ale or vitamin water. The Pol Roget was just delicious. I also liked Pommery Rose, but that was a few years ago.
For your next party (MLK Day, anyone?) try punch instead of bubbly. But take it to the next level. Don’t buy pre-made mixes; use fresh-squeezed. Remember the rule of punch ingredients: one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, and four of weak. The sour would be lemon or lime, the sweet would be simple syrup or ginger ale, the strong is the booze and the weak could be water or sparkling wine. My new favorite punch is Bombay Punch.
Bombay Punch
2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups powdered sugar or simple syrup
3 cups brandy
3 cups dry sherry
1/3 cup maraschino cherries with syrup
1/3 cup orange liqueur (use Cointreau)
3 750-ml.bottles champagne or sparkling wine. It should be less dry than brut
40 ounces club soda
Ice mold
Chill all ingredients well before mixing. Sweeten the lemon juice to taste with sugar or simple syrup. Transfer to a punch bowl. Stir in the brandy, sherry, maraschino, and orange liqueur. Add the champagne and club soda last. Stir. Float an ice mold. And garnish with slices of orange. Makes 40 servings.
Don’t let the 40 servings fool you. This is good for six of my friends, one motorcycle gang and one half of any college fraternity.
Tell Tim your wine stories. You can reach him at
tprotzman@sbcglobal.net.
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