Rye High: a recipe for the ultimate Canada Day punch from The Emerson’s Aja Sax

Rye High: a recipe for the ultimate Canada Day punch from The Emerson’s Aja Sax

Recipe: the ultimate Canada Day punch from The Emerson's Aja Sax

Canadian rye now rivals bourbon as bartenders’ brown booze of choice. Here, Aja Sax, the cocktail savant at The Emerson, shares her Canada Day punch recipe

Ingredients
3 cups Dillon’s white rye from Niagara (LCBO 337600)
1½ cup St. Germain liqueur
1¼ cup tart cherry juice
1 cup brewed and cooled strong lemon tea (five packets of Lemon Zinger will do the trick)
1½ cup Hinterland Whitecap spark­ling wine (LCBO, Vintages 332809)
Fresh Ontario cherries

Prep
Place a pitted cherry in each cube of a few ice cube trays. Add water and freeze overnight.

Right before serving, pour all the ingredients except the sparkling wine and ice cubes into a punch bowl. At the last minute, add the sparkling wine. Place one cherry ice cube in your guest’s glass and top with punch.

Makes approximately 10 servings.

(Image: Carlo Mendoza)