(Louisville) Cardinal Punch

Maker's Mark glasses: require a bit of bourbon!

It's raining today.  In fact, it's been raining consistently for the past week.  It's really cramping my style.  Especially since our volleyball courts have flooded and the games were cancelled.  I was really looking forward to playing in the sand tonight.  Who cares about safety, right?  Well... see, the rain is even making me think crazy thoughts!  Safety is more important, so I guess it's for the best.  But seriously... the rain needs to stop. 

Anyway, I was off from work yesterday and got a lot of food/drink related things done.  This punch was one of those things.  It actually stopped raining momentarily.  It gave me enough time to go out back on the deck and take some pictures.  And then my camera battery died.  Seriously.  FML.

But rain and a dead camera battery (which is now fully charged, thank you) aren't reasons enough to complain.  Life ain't so bad.

And this punch proves it.  Easily adaptable to be an "adult" beverage (throw in some bourbon and you've got yourself something delicious), but delicious enough on it's own, sans-alcohol.  And I don't know if the University of Louisville Cardinals have an official drink or not, but the punch definitely has the team colors going on. 

Ingredients:

Adapted from the 1945 Edition of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook

2 cups cranberries (the last of my frozen babies - until next fall!)
3 cups water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
Juice from 1 lemon
1 can of ginger ale (Ale 8 is the best!)

In a medium saucepan, cook the cranberries in 2 cups of water until they are soft, about 10 minutes or so.  Drain the liquid into a juice pitcher through a metal strainer or cheesecloth.  Discard solids.

In a small saucepan, make a simple syrup by boiling sugar and remaining cup of water for about 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Add syrup to the cranberry juice in pitcher and place in refrigerator to chill, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Add in orange juice, lemon juice, and ginger ale.

Fill glasses with ice and pour punch over top.  If you're feeling up to it, splash a little bit of bourbon or vodka in there, too.  Or not.  It's up to you! Oh, and if you didn't want to go through the whole making your cranberry juice sort of thing (especially if you didn't hoard any in your freezer, like I did), you could always just get cranberry juice (you'll need about 3 cups) from the store - just skip down to adding the orange juice, lemon juice, and ginger ale step if you do.

Hope you guys have a good rest of your Wednesday!  I'm off to study for my last final ever.... well, in a traditional college course, that is.  Until September when my finals will be Culinary School-related...