Homemade Cranberry Citrus & Spiece Punch or Naturally Fermented Soda
Here’s a homemade, easy recipe for hot cranberry punch or coldnaturally fermented cranberry soda on ice. Choose your favorite healthy sugar,along with spice and citrus. This is a non-alcoholic drink that can be quickly preparedas a holiday punch or wholesome drink for special occasions.
Ingredients
To Make Cranberry Punch
- 2 Medium-Sized Bag of Cranberries 6-8 Cups
- 1 Gallon Filtered Water
- 1-2 Cups Raw Sugar* to taste
- 2 Tbsp. of Mulling Spice to taste
- Juice from 4 Large Oranges to taste
To Make Natural Soda
- Additional 1/2 Cup Raw Sugar
- 2 Cups of Strained Water Kefir
- Liquid Sweetener like Real Maple Syrup or Stevia to taste
Instructions
To Make Cranberry Punch:
- Place the cranberries into a stock pot and cover with the gallon of water. Simmer over medium heat until the cranberry skins start to pop.
- Simmer gently for ten minutes to extract all the color, flavor, and juice. The water in the pot should be dark red.
- Strain out cranberry bits with a fine mesh sieve to remove cranberry skins and flesh. If you want to remove cranberry seeds, too, use cheesecloth to strain.
- Return the cranberry juice to the pot on low heat; add the sugar. Stir until dissolved.
- Add the mulling spice in a tea ball or tied up piece of cheesecloth to the pot and steep over low heat for at least 20 minutes. The longer the spices are in the pot, the stronger their flavor will be, FYI.
- Remove the spices and pour the cranberry juice into a large pitcher. At this point, add the fresh orange juice, mixing it in well, and then taste the punch. Does it need more sweetener? More citrus? If you've got too much of a flavor, add a little more water or some unsweetened apple juice which can have a very balancing effect on homemade punch.
- Serve this punch warm or cold.
To Make Cranberry Soda
- Follow the instructions above to make cranberry punch up to number 6 - do NOT add the fresh orange juice yet. Allow the spice cranberry juice to cool to room temperature.
- Add the additional 1/2 cup of raw sugar and the water kefir to the cranberry juice and place the whole mixture into half gallon jars with lids (or any non-metal container with a lid). Allow the kefir to ferment overnight in a warm place.
- In the morning, taste the cranberry mixture - is it fizzy enough? If not, allow it to ferment another six hours. Fermentation is a finnicky business and the speed with which is occurs depends a lot on ambient temperature, as well as the kind and amount of sugar used to feed the ferment.
- Once the cranberry mixture is fizzy enough for your taste, add the orange juice and the liquid sweetener to taste. Serve immediately on ice!
Notes
* You can use your preferred sweetener to flavor the punch or the soda. Our favorites include raw sugar, real maple syrup, and coconut sugar. If you need low carb, any of the Keto sweeteners will work great!
However, you'll need to use the sweetener your kefir is accustomed to eating in order to feed/ferment it. We use raw sugar to feed our water kefir.
If you don't have mulling spice on hand, you can use equal parts nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and allspice tied up in a piece of cheesecloth.
You may also use a ginger bug in place of water kefir to make a naturally fermented soda. If you're in a rush, you can cheat and use club soda to give the punch bubbles. The resulting soda won't be naturally fermented and it won't have probiotics, but it will fizz and taste delicious. Still way better than store-bought, right?!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!