Spirited Brunch is a celebration of openness; an exaltation of sharing—except when it comes to the beverages served.
“Lemonade punch,” on the event menu at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, is a mystery even to the church members who prepare it.
“It is St. Matthew’s secret punch,” Janelle Othersen told me when I dared to ask for additional details on the drink. “Why, I don’t know. All I can say is it’s a very simple recipe.”
(Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Othersen’s made the news for doling out drinks. In 2010, The Post and Courier’s Glenn Smith chronicled the local benefactor’s involvement with Charleston’s Ladies Benevolent Society, which has hosted charitable tea parties for two centuries. From “an elegant mansion overlooking Charleston Harbor,” he reported on “an ornate table brimming with pimento cheese sandwiches, roasted pecans, fresh fruit, and moist brownies. As chatter and laughter reverberated off the cathedral ceilings, each hostess smiled and carefully poured amber-colored tea from matching silver services.”)
As for the punch served in disposable cups, Othersen said, “People seem to enjoy it.”
While St. Matthew’s isn’t about to divulge the ingredients of its punch, several Lutheran churches across the country have posted recipes for lemonade punches, most of them involving Sprite, pineapple juice, and decorative slices of lemon. None of them call for alcohol, in contrast to the Thai Basil Lemonade cocktail featured in Circular Congregational Church’s new cookbook.
Members of Circular, a Spirited Brunch stalwart from the start, decided to update the church’s previous cookbook based in part on feedback from tourgoers.
“We had our original on display and had so many people asking if they could buy it, but we had sold out in 2017 and weren’t able to get more,” Kayann Januchowski said of The Edible Gospel II: A Tasty Testament’s genesis.
For Spirited Brunch, Circular is making Thai Basil Lemonade without the gin, but readers who can’t join Sunday’s fun may want to recreate the original at home. As Januchowski says, with a nod to the drink mystique that prevails at St. Matthew’s, “What happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.”
THAI BASIL LEMONADE SPRITZ
Recipe by Bailey Byrum
Ingredients
Basil simple syrup
- 1 cup of water
- 1 cup of sugar
- 20-30 pieces of basil
Cocktail
- ¾ ounce Thai basil simple syrup
- 1 ½ ounce vodka or gin
- ¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ½ ounce soda water
Directions
- Combine the water, sugar, and basil in a pot. Bring mixture to a boil, then allow it to simmer for 5-10 minutes until your syrup starts to appear green.
- Allow mixture to cool, then strain the syrup with a cheesecloth into a container.
- Combine the simple syrup, spirit, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously for 10 seconds. Strain into a Collins glass and fill with ice. Top with soda water to taste; garnish with lemon slice and basil leaves.
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