Ginger Ale Punch for a Dry Party
Reader ratingsWeak tea, sugar, orange and lemon juice over a block of ice, topped with ginger ale and sparkling water at the last minute: a Prohibition party punch.
- Recipe makes
- About 7 cups
- Prep
- Total
Includes 5 minutes for the tea to steep and about 30 minutes for the sweetened tea to cool. Freeze the ice block the day before.
Ginger ale punch in a glass bowl with a block of ice and floating orange slices.
The story behind the recipe
Pour weak tea, sugar and orange and lemon juice over a block of ice, top it with ginger ale and sparkling water just before serving, and you have the punch Bertha Stockbridge printed in What to Drink in 1920. Ten years later, Washington hostesses were still trading punches built on the same tea, citrus and ginger ale, collected in a book whose preface called the Eighteenth Amendment “a permanent part of our Constitution.”
The Prohibition Commissioner’s wife
That book was Prohibition Punches (1930) by Roxana B. Doran, who signed herself “Mrs. James M. Doran.” Her husband, James M. Doran, served as federal Prohibition Commissioner. The preface, dated May 1, 1930, is by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, who scolds Americans for “sulking, like the small boy, because we couldn’t sup the nectar of a ‘forbidden fruit.’”
Many recipes carry their donor’s name: wives of Washington officials and state governors, sororities, a university home economics department. A fruit punch of tea, pineapple and berry juice, reprinted from The Ladies’ Home Journal, is credited to Laura Volstead Lomen, “Daughter of Rep. Volstead, author of the Volstead Act.” A Temperance Punch of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, strong tea and four bottles of ginger ale “Serves 75 people.”
Wiley’s permanent amendment lasted three and a half more years. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed it on December 5, 1933. Stockbridge’s bowl is the living-room version: about seven cups. For a single glass, her grape juice highball is a cup of purple juice, a teaspoon of syrup and a fill of soda water.
Read more about this recipe
Pouring it now
The tea is weak, a level teaspoon of leaves to a cup and a half of water, and the citrus is mostly orange. Ginger ale brings the spice. Stockbridge names Apollinaris, a bottled sparkling mineral water; any plain sparkling water will do. Add both at the last minute, as she says, so the bowl is still fizzing when it reaches the cups. The rest of a dry party’s drinks are gathered under historic non-alcoholic drinks.
A cup of sugar plus modern ginger ale makes a sweet punch. Stockbridge’s own rule, in her note on the tart loganberry juice in the punch just above it, is to taste as you go and serve a punch too tart sooner than too sweet. A large block of ice melts slower than cubes and waters the bowl down less.
Recipe makes: About 7 cups
Ingredients
For About 7 cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 7 cups.
- Loose black tea, level1 tsp
- Boiling water12 fl oz
- Sugar1 cup
- Orange juice8 fl oz
- Lemon juice2 fl oz
- Ginger ale, chilled16 fl oz
- Sparkling mineral water, chilled16 fl oz
- Orange, thinly sliced1
- Block of ice1
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 tsp loose black tea, level
- 12 fl oz boiling water
- 1 cup sugar
- 8 fl oz orange juice
- 2 fl oz lemon juice
- 16 fl oz ginger ale, chilled
- 16 fl oz sparkling mineral water, chilled
- 1 orange, thinly sliced
- 1 block of ice
Equipment
Teapot or heatproof jug
Fine strainer
Loaf pan, for the ice block
Punch bowl and ladle
Instructions
The day before, fill a loaf pan with water and freeze it for the block of ice.
Put the loose black tea in a teapot or heatproof jug, pour in the boiling water and leave to steep for 5 minutes.
Strain the tea over the sugar and stir until it has dissolved. Leave to cool, about 30 minutes.
Stir the orange juice and lemon juice into the cooled tea. Taste, and add a little more lemon juice if it seems too sweet.
Unmold the ice block into the punch bowl and pour the tea mixture over it.
Just before serving, pour in the ginger ale and sparkling mineral water, and float the orange slices on top. Ladle into punch cups.
Nutrition
75calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 7 cups
- Servings
- 14
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for sugar, orange juice and ginger ale, for fourteen half-cup punch cups.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Scale everything together. For a large bowl, a bigger block of ice keeps the punch cold longest.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Stockbridge’s quantities are 1 cupful of sugar, 1½ cupfuls of tea (a level teaspoon of tea infused in a cup and a half of boiling water for five minutes), 1 cupful of orange juice, ¼ cupful of lemon juice, 1 pint of ginger ale and 1 pint of Apollinaris. They are kept as printed, in US measures.
For a larger party, Doran’s Temperance Punch scales the same idea to two dozen oranges, three dozen lemons, the juice of six grapefruit, a quart of strong tea, three quarts of water and four bottles of ginger ale, sweetened to taste.
The punch bowl, and the Washington hostesses who filled it, are part of Five Alcohol-Free Drinks for a 1920s Party.
Make ahead
Make the sweetened tea and juice base up to a few hours ahead and keep it in the fridge. Add the ginger ale and sparkling water only when the guests arrive.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
Bertha E. L. Stockbridge, What to Drink: The Blue Book of Beverages (New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1920), p. 20
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-freeMocktail
- Drink family
- Punches & Cups
- Region
- American
- Source decade
- 1920s
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- 1920s partySummer party