Woodland Punch and Whiskey Tea Mash

One of the best things about a DVR is being able to set it to record a whole series of shows without having to set it over and over. The show that I've been DVRing lately is a show on the Fine Living Network (FLN) called Great Cocktails. Today's drinks are two of the recipes I saw on the two episodes they showed Friday morning (3 and 3:30am CDT).

Woodland Punch is named for the Woodland Plantation in West Pointe a la Hache, LA, about 40 minutes south of New Orleans. You may be thinking, "What's so special about the Woodland Plantation?" That's the name of the home on the label of a bottle of Southern Comfort, and it is now a bed and breakfast.

Anyway, to make this punch with a nice kick to it, get out a large punch bowl. The first ingredient is, as you can imagine, 1 entire bottle of Southern Comfort (which is peach and whiskey-flavored). Next, pour in two liters of pineapple juice. Follow that with 4 oz. each of maraschino cherry juice and club soda. If you'd like it a little sweeter, you can add more of the cherry juice. Finally, squeeze in the juice of a whole lime. Stir the mixture and it should be a pinkish color. When you serve it, garnish each glass with a lime wedge and a cherry.

Now, what to do if you don't like pineapple juice (there's something wrong with you, but there's something wrong with all of us)? Try other citrus juices, like orange or grapefruit (ruby red grapefruit for something not so tart).

The Whiskey Tea Mash was presented on the show as a lighter alternative to some other cocktails (like the pina colada which weighs in at over 600 calories in one drink). The tool you'll need that I haven't mentioned before is a muddler (also known as a pestle, like pharmacists use to make powders from some of the pills they dispense.

To start, you want to drop a lemon wedge and a peeled slice of a peach in the bottom of a mixing glass with 1-1/2 oz. of simple syrup (a syrup made from equal parts sugar and water). Take the muddler and put the end that looks a bit like the knob on a baseball bat in the bottom of the glass and start to muddle or crush the lemon and peach. Do this until you've gotten all the juice out of both pieces of fruit. Add ice to the glass and then pour in 1-1/2 oz. of bourbon (a kind of whiskey) and 3 oz. of cold-brewed unsweetened tea. Shake it well and strain it over ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with another slice of peach and a lemon wedge. Yum.

That's it for now, and as always, please drink responsibly.