S. M. Daniel's Jacked Punch

Author Notes

When I was growing up, the adult members of my family partook of alcohol in the form of highballs, old-fashioneds, Rob Roys, martinis, Manhattans, etc., so my first experience with punch didn't occur until high school. I attended an all-girls Catholic school, complete with plaid uniforms, four years of Latin, and nuns with black habits. (That's what they wore, not what they did. I think). At any rate, every couple of months, in order to stave off complete social retardation on our part, a "mixer" would be organized in which the students at nearby all-boys Catholic high schools would be invited to our gym for an evening of dancing and "light" refreshments. The dancing part was seldom outstandingly successful, as Sister Mary Joseph, Sister Mary Aloysius and Sister Mary Paul made it their business as chaperones to swoop in on unsuspecting couples clinging to one another during slow dances and remind them to "leave room for the Holy Spirit." I am not making this up. The refreshments invariably featured a plate of cookies baked by someone's mom and Sister Mary Daniel's fruit punch in a big crystal bowl with little cups handing off the sides by their handles. (We weren't allowed to use the crystal cups, of course, we had drink out of the paper cups lined up alongside). The punch at the beginning of the evening, however, was markedly different than the iteration a half-hour later, after several of our visitors had distracted Sister Mary Daniel and surreptitiously spiked it with whatever vodka, gin, scotch, bourbon and/or rye they had pilfered from their parents' liquor cabinets. Woohoo!! I cannot swear to it, but I believe this is how Long Island Iced Tea was first created. This recipe uses Tennessee sour mash whiskey, which I find to be less sweet than bourbon, and is inspired by Marcus Samuelsson's Grapefruit Bourbon Sours. —wssmom