Cocktail Pros Explain How To Plan Making Alcoholic Punch For A Party

While bartenders and mixologists make quick work of single-serve cocktails, the last thing we want to do as hosts is spend all our time making drinks for guests. That's why an alcoholic punch is such a convenient centerpiece for parties. We consulted two cocktail pros — David Kravitz, beverage director at The Group Hospitality (which includes Olio e Piu) and Lexi Parker, beverage manager at Poka Lola Social Club – to explain the best way to plan making alcoholic punches for your party. 

David Kravitz suggests that punch is simply a cocktail served in large format. He says, "In my mind a punch would be classified as a type of cocktail." He clarifies, "It seems as though punch is specifically a large format drink, but we serve single serving portions of punch all the time."

Like a regular cocktail, punch is all about ratios. Kravitz tells us that "making a large format version of a punch is all about scaling up your ratios of ingredients for however many people you're trying to serve. I always start with specs for a single serving of something and scale it up from there." 

Of course, large-format punch recipes provide multiple servings of a cocktail right off the bat, but you might need more than the recipe calls for. To that effect, Parker says, "For ratios, I would ask myself how many guests I have and multiply the recipe to provide two glasses of punch per person assuming you would be moving to wine with dinner and after dinner drinks." 

If you're wondering which cocktails would work well as large-format punches, Lexi Parker thinks "tiki cocktails work well for punches. I would also suggest looking to recipes from the 18th and 19th centuries." We have a long list of tiki cocktails to try in big batches. Cocktails from the 19th century encompass many classic recipes, known for a short and simple list of ingredients that would be very easy to scale up to a punch. A few examples include old fashioneds, Manhattans, and corpse revivers.

If we're looking back in time, according to Lexi Parker, "Punches are perhaps the first cocktails and were obviously for a group or entertaining. Many of the earliest incarnations used tea and often introduced spice through ingredients like Batavia Arrak, Falernum, or Allspice Drams." Similar to the formula for the modern-day cocktail, the first punch recipes — which date back to the East India Company in the 17th century — "showcased a mix of spirit, citrus, water or tea, sugar and spice," says Parker. 

You can lean into spices in our Christmassy punch recipe which uses ginger ale and spiced rum, and could be drunk on any winter occasion. We also have a delicious green tea punch, which incorporates both green and mint teas, as well as nutmeg, sugar, and rum. Alternatively, go for classics like a Caribbean-style rum punch or a refreshing Spanish sangria.