Holiday Tea Punch is a great, easy to make holiday citrus cocktail. You can whip it up big batch or make just enough for a few glasses.
Made with gin – in this case Caorunn – it’s perfect all year long, but particularly during the holidays.
Fill your punch bowl with some gin, citrus, and tea punch
Caorunn provided Champagne and Coconuts with a bottle of gin for us to try their Holiday Tea Punch recipe. However, all opinions are our own.
During the holidays, it’s always a good idea to have a go-to punch recipe handy.
What’s even better?
Having a punch recipe that is different from what most of your guests will expect.
And that’s exactly what you get with the Caorunn Tea Punch.
It’s citrusy flavors mixed with tea and a delightful botanical gin with some warm spices spells yummy!
And only 93 calories per serving, your guests will love that it packs a lot of flavor without a lot of calories.
Enjoy a pitcher of Caorunn Holiday Tea Punch
We have Scottish heritage in our blood, so trying a London Dry Gin made in Scotland naturally piqued our interest.
This delightful holiday punch is made with Caorunn, a deliciously fragrant gin made in Scotland.
Throw in a homemade cardamom and cinnamon tea blend; it’s a delight for your taste buds.
With a base of grapefruit and orange juice, the tea, citrus, and gin blends just perfectly. And it looks beautiful in a pitcher or punch bowl too!
This recipe makes about 6 drinks, but you can easily multiply it if you are serving a larger crowd.
What is Caorunn Gin?
Caorunn, pronounced ka-roon, is a premium, small batch London Dry Gin made in the Scottish Highlands.
It has a nice crisp taste.
Gin is known for its botanical blends, and Caorunn adds a nice blend of rowan berry, bog myrtle, heather, coul blush apple, and dandelion leaf to the traditional botanicals like juniper and coriadner to get its distinct flavor.
Caorunn Gin is made at the Balmenach Distillery located in the Cairngorm National Park.
Balmenach has been around as a whisky distillery since 1824. That’s almost 3 centuries!
Caorunn makes 4 types of gin, one of which is exclusive to travel retailers.
You can find the Caorunn Gin we used as well as a Scottish Raspberry flavor and one called Highland Strength.
That one has a whopping 54% ABV with a bold flavor.
(We are using the traditional strength rather than Highland Strength in this recipe.)
And yes, I am having images of Jamie Fraser and friends sharing a cask of Highland Strength Caorunn along with some scotch whiskey dance through my mind…
Thank you to our friends at Caorunn for sharing this recipe and their photos with us.
Ingredients to make Caorunn Holiday Tea Punch
You’ll love this delicious, under 100 calories holiday tea punch!
- 1 3/4 oz. Fresh Squeezed White Grapefruit Juice
- 1 3/4 oz. Fresh squeezed Orange Juice
- 1 3/4 oz. Ginger Syrup
- 5 oz Caorunn Gin
- 7 oz. Black Tea, infused
- 6-8 Cardamom Pods
- 2 Cinnamon Sticks
- 1 cup Water, to dilute the tea
- Optional: Sweetener for the tea
- Optional: Star Anise, for garnish
- Optional: Pink Peppercorns, for garnish
Note: For your garnishes, you will want 1-2 apple slices per cup.
If you opt to include a star anise pod and some pink peppercorns, you’ll want to use one star anise pod per cup and 2-3 pink peppercorns.
Can I serve the drink as a mocktail?
Sure you can! Simply omit the gin from the recipe and enjoy!
Since it is a punch, there’s really no need to replace the gin’s volume in the mixture unless you simply need to stretch the punch to serve a crowd.
If you need to stretch the punch, you can add a bit more tea, orange juice, and grapefruit juice to make up for the gin.
Can I serve the drink as a big batch cocktail?
This drink is perfect to serve in a big batch for holiday events and parties.
Simply multiply the recipe and follow our instructions for how to make it ahead of time if you need to.
If you need to serve the drink sparkling, and this also stretches the drink a little farther, you can add a touch of ginger-ale to the drink.
The warmth of ginger ale goes nicely with the spices.
How to make Caorunn Holiday Tea Punch
Begin by brewing a strong mug of tea. While the tea’s brewing, get your spices together. You’ll need a couple of cinnamon sticks and some cardamom pods.
Sweeten the tea to your liking and let it cool down.
Before it’s time to serve, put a large block of ice, or an ice ring in your punch bowl. As an alternative, if you’re using a pitcher, fill it with ice.
You want the punch to have a bit of time to chill. It won’t take long, so you can make it a little bit ahead of time.
Pour the tea, orange juice, grapefruit juice, and gin to the punch bowl.
Add the cinnamon and cardamom pods. Give it a gentle stir to mix, and serve in punch cups over ice.
Can I make the punch ahead of time?
Yes, you can do that. Depending on how much time you plan to make it ahead, you may want to do it one of two ways.
The first option is to simply make the tea ahead of time and mix it with the orange and grapefruit juices and chill it overnight. Then add the spices and pour over ice shortly before serving.
In that instance, I prefer to add the spices later so that they don’t overpower the drink. But if you like it strong, you can go ahead and mix them when you make it.
The second way to make it ahead of time would be to make it the same day but a few hours prior to when you plan to serve it.
Again, combine the ingredients and have the punch mixture ready to go. Ideally, it would be chilling in the fridge. Then just add it to the punch bowl and serve!
In the second instance, you will have a slightly stronger spice flavor, but it won’t be so strong as it would be had you mixed the spices in overnight.
Again, if that’s too strong, you can always wait to add the cinnamon and cardamom until you add it to the punch bowl. It’s up to you.
More Delicious Holiday Cocktail Recipes:
Blackberry Fireball Whiskey Fizz
Peppermint Hot Chocolate Coffee
Chocolate Covered Cherry Martinis
Highland Whiskey Spiked Hot Chocolate
try it and share!
Please let us know how you enjoy our Caorunn Holiday Tea Punch recipe.
If you make it yourself, please let us know on Pinterest that you tried it and tag us with #champagneandcoconuts on your Instagram photo.
If you haven’t had a chance to make it yet, be sure to save the recipe on Pinterest so you’ll remember where you found it.
Caorunn Tea Punch
Equipment
- Punch Bowl
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ oz. Freshly squeezed white grapefruit juice
- 1 ¾ oz. Freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 ¾ oz Ginger syrup
- 5 oz. Caorunn
- 7 oz. Green cardamom and cinnamon infused black tea
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a punch bowl and fill with a large block of ice. When ready to serve, add punch into glasses with fresh ice. Garnish with apple slices. Optional: add pink peppercorns and star anise.
- For the tea: brew a strong mug of tea, add 6-8 green cardamom pods and two cinnamon sticks. Leave to cool and strain into punch bowl (diluted and sweetened to taste)
Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published in November of 2019. It’s been updated in November of 2021.
Hi, I’m Jennifer. I love to cook and entertain. I have a lot of fun sharing traditional food and drink recipes as well as putting a new spin on the classics. I strive to provide easy to make recipes that are perfect for the home cook, bartender and entertainer.
Gin isn’t usually my drink, but one of my friends made this last weekend, and I really liked it. The punch was fab!