Spooky Halloween Punch with Eyeballs Recipe:- In addition to being pleasantly fruity, this Halloween punch does not contain any fake ingredients or added sweetener, and it may be prepared with or without the addition of alcohol.
This is the recipe for the Halloween punch that I promised in my previous post. As I mentioned earlier, I am a huge fan of these lychee eyeballs, and I plan to incorporate them into a number of spooky goodies earlier this year.
It is quite difficult to discover Halloween recipes that do not include any processing, and these eyeballs are unprocessed, frightening, and completely natural. All you need is blueberries and lychees that have been canned.
Spooky Halloween Punch with Eyeballs Recipe
I promised a Halloween punch recipe in my post. These lychee eyes are awesome, and I plan to use them in some scary goodies this year.
Unprocessed Halloween recipes are rare, but these eyes are simple, spooky, and natural. You only need canned lychees and blueberries!
Ingredients
Punch:
- 1 quart (4 cups – 950 ml) 100% pineapple juice
- 1 quart (4 cups – 950 ml) 100% blood orange juice
- 3 cups (710 ml) 100% apple juice
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) 100% lime juice
- 3 cups (710 ml) white rum or more – omit for an alcohol-free version
- ice, optional – better is to use frozen lychee eyeballs
Eyeballs (see notes for amounts):
- canned lychees
- blueberries
Instructions
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Prepare the eyeballs. Place a blueberry in the middle of each lychee. If desired, place two on a skewer to make a set of eyes. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve or use as ice cubes (highly recommended). To do that, lay the assembled eyeballs in a single layer on a tray and freeze for about 1-2 hours or until solid. Keep them in a freezer-proof container until ready to serve.
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It’s recommended to freeze the juice bottles and rum in the freezer for a few hours before serving. Shortly before serving, mix all the punch ingredients together. Keep chilled until ready to serve.
Notes
You need to decide how big your servings will be before you know how many lychees and blueberries you’ll need. For each eyeball, you need 1 lychee + 1 blueberries.
This recipe yields 11 1/3 cups of punch if omitting the rum. If you add the rum, you’ll have 14 1/3 cups of punch.
11 1/3 cups of alcohol-free punch = 18 servings of 5-ounces (.625 cups) each.
If you want to use 5-ounce servings, you’ll need 18 lychees + 18 blueberries for 1 eyeball per drink. If you want a pair of eyeballs per serving, you’ll need 36 lychees + 36 blueberries.
If adding rum, you’ll have 23 5-ounce servings. You’ll need 23 lychees + 23 blueberries for each serving for 1 eyeball or double that for a pair of eyeballs per drink.
Ingredients in this punch
A lot of punch recipes call for ingredients I’ve never even heard of. I tried to keep things simple, but still delicious, and think I succeeded.
The idea of a fruity punch being appropriate for Halloween, when most people are probably more interested in warm beverages such as Pumpkin Hot Chocolate or Hot Spiced Apple Cider, may appear strange; however, these beverages are not suitable for the lychee eyeballs.
And besides, who can turn down a rummy fruity drink?
You just need:
- pineapple juice
- blood orange juice (or regular orange juice if you don’t care about the color – and here’s how to make Blood Orange Juice)
- apple juice
- lime juice
- white rum (can be omitted for an alcohol-free version)
For this punch, you just dump everything in a punch bowl. Bam. Done.
Everything I used was 100% juice and no added sugar was needed. I couldn’t be bothered to make the simple syrup that you often find in punches, cocktails, etc.
This drink was still sweet enough! I think anyone would be happy with it.
Note that the blood orange juice I used was a deep red color. If you use juice that’s more pinkish, the drink will be a bit pinker and less red.
Alcoholic vs. non-alcoholic
If you’ve got some kids or non-drinking friends coming to your party (hopefully an outdoor, socially distanced, safe shindig!), just set some punch aside for them and then add your rum to the alcoholic version.
One thing that I just thought of is using sparkling apple cider / juice in place of the apple juice for a kid version. I think that’d be fun.
It’s been ages since I’ve had sparkling cider and don’t have it where I live so it could be a terrible idea. It’s easy enough to try out a tiny batch, though!
To make a tiny test batch, use 2 tablespoons pineapple juice, 2 tablespoons blood orange juice, 1 1/2 tablespoons sparking apple cider / juice and 1/2 teaspoon lime juice.
The variety of rum and the quantity of it
The amount of rum that you use will, of course, be determined by the degree of rummy you want your punch to be. It seemed to us that the quantity that was specified in the recipe was just right.
The balance was just right, without being overly rummy. You may, however, desire more.
It is always possible to get an additional bottle, and if it is not required for the punch, you can make this incredible. In either case, you may keep it around till Christmas or you can use it for Halloween.
Or at any time. Every time, rum cake is delicious!