For Sam’s graduation party, I put out a devil’s food cake (from Rosso and Lukins’ New Basics Cookbook), chili-lime peanuts (from epicurious), butter mints (from Albertsons) and a double-batch of strawberry punch, based on the recipe from Joy of Cooking.

A few people asked for the recipe. The original is good just the way it is and I’ve made it that way many times, but Sam doesn’t like carbonated beverages, so I had to fake it a little bit.

The Original

Boil for 5 minutes:
4 cups water
4 cups sugar
Cool the syrup. Combine:
2 quarts hulled strawberries
1 cup slice canned or fresh pineapple
1 cup mixed fruit juice — pineapple, apricot, raspberry, etc.
Juice of 5 large oranges
Juice of 5 large lemons
(3 sliced bananas)
Add the syrup, or as much of it as is palatable. Chill these ingredients. Immediately before serving, add:
2 quarts carbonated water
3 cups or more of crushed ice.
The basic mix is concentrated, to offset the dilution that happens with the icing. Water can be added, as desired.

JoC Strawberry Punch, Sam Style

Boil for 5 minutes
4 cups water
4 cups sugar
As the syrup is cooling, hull and slice the strawberries into the syrup (helps the infusion)
When ready to mix, I added one bottle of TexSun Orange-Pineapple Juice (a favorite from his childhood) and 1 1/2 cups of lemon juice, and a small can of pineapple slices, drained.
Chill.
To serve, I added three trays of ice cubes.