Resurrection Punch | An Easter Cocktail

Recipe

2.5 oz Easter Honey Rum (or any Gold Rum)
1 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
.5 oz Cinnamon Syrup
.5 oz Apricot Liqueur
.5 oz Velvet Falernum
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Top with Sparkling Water or Champagne

Scale this punch recipe as needed. Combine ingredients (minus the sparkling) without ice and let chill. When ready to drink, pour over large ice in a bowl or crushed ice in a collins glass. Top with bubbles. If you can’t chill it ahead of time, shake everything (minus sparkling) with just enough ice to chill and not dilute. Strain into glass with crushed ice and top with bubbles. Add a straw and garnish with a cherry.

View other Holy Day cocktails.

* * * *

It’s Easter! And to remind us that this is a season and not just a day, I’m giving you your Easter cocktail a few days in. Easter is the height of joy and celebration in the Christian Calendar, where Christians are invited–nay, expected–to be as extra as possible, with laughter, singing, hope, and yes, good food and drink.

To that end, I give you this tiki rum punch for this glorious season. And it is a delight. You can have it solo or with friends. It is sweet, floral, fruity, vibrant, bubbly, and bright.

For the base, I use a heavy pour of our Easter Honey Rum. I also knew I wanted to use Passion Fruit Syrup to remind us how Easter is literally the “fruit” of Jesus’ “passion”.

Cinnamon, Falernum, and the Angostura give the drink character and backbone; they are spicy and dark ingredients made sweet and bright here. This makes me think of the fires of hell, now quenched and by Jesus’ overpowering light and life.

Apricot is also a more biblical choice than you may think. Many scholars agree that Eden’s Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was based on an Apricot tree, not an Apple tree. So this drink tries to capture how death came through one tree, but life through another.

Whether you use sparking water or champagne, the bubbles really make this drink and give it that sense of celebration and effervescent life that we have in Christ.

Lastly, the garnishes here are inspired by the medieval Anastasis fresco in Istanbul’s Chora Church, an influential piece of Resurrection art that has spurred numerous icons and art pieces since:

Chora Chuch Fresco, 14th-Cent.

For my tiki drink, yes, that’s a surfboard with a shark bite in it. But today, it’s a coffin broken open. The two skulls are Adam and Even being pulled from the grave by Christ (the cherry). The picks are criss-crossed like the keys of Hades which Christ now has.

This cocktail series has been really fun. Be sure to check out my other Holy Day cocktails. I hope some of you make these drinks and enjoy them as much as I did.

Let’s raise a glass to our Risen Lord! Happy Easter!

Ingredient & Technique Notes

I used my Easter infused Rum, but let’s be honest: there are so many other flavors here you can use any Gold (or Light) Rum. I would be curious about using a rum blend so you taste the rum more, but I didn’t try that here.

There’s also John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum, but use any form of falernum you have.

For sweeteners, we have homemade Cinnamon Syrup (it’s super easy–just google it), Liber and Co’s incredible Passion Fruit Syrup, and Rothman and Winter Apricot Liqueur. For that last one, you can use any floral liqueur: St. Germain, Hibiscus Liqueur, or even any Orange Liqueur like Cointreau or Curacao. It wont’ be exactly the same, but it’ll be fine.

For the sparkling element here, I just used some Aldo Sparkling Italian Mineral Water, but I imagine champagne would be really great.

Just a couple of technique notes. I try to emphasize this in the recipe, but try not to dilute this much before adding ice. The texture is really nice here and you don’t want to thin it out too much. I added everything into a shaker on Holy Saturday and kept in the fridge over night until Easter, and it was great.

Lastly, beware that it is a lot of liquid–6oz before adding ice and sparkling. Keep that in mind when selecting your glassware.