I find that one of the best ways to provide drinks for a party is with a good punch. A punch allows you to provide something beautiful and fabulous for your guests to drink that you can make ahead of time and forget about. (Which is especially handy if you are drinking the punch as well.)

This year I came across this Sparkling Pomegranate Punch recipe on a Food and Wine holiday drink slide show. I was drawn to the great colors in the picture and the simplicity of the recipe. Mostly champagne? I’m down.

Now, I wasn’t interested in providing ice for individual glasses and doing fancy garnishes. That sounded hard. So instead, I made an ice mold to float in the punch bowl to keep everything cold and also floated all the fruit. It worked really well. The night before, I filled a glass container with some fruit, enough pomegranate juice to create a nice color, and the rest with water. I froze it overnight and ran hot water over the bottom of the glass when I was ready to make the punch, and the ice popped right out and into my punch bowl. Then you just add in the rest of the stuff and you don’t have to think about drinks for a few hours!

The color combination makes for a beautiful presentation and a very tasty punch. Try this out for your upcoming holiday parties! Though honestly, this is one that would really work year round.

Sparkling Pomegranate Punch
From Food and Wine

3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup pomegranate juice
Two 750-milliliter bottles sparkling wine, chilled
3/4 cup late-harvest white wine, such as late-harvest Riesling, chilled
2 oranges, thinly sliced crosswise
1 cup diced fresh pineapple (1/2 inch)
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
Ice cubes, for serving

1. In a punch bowl, dissolve the sugar in the pomegranate juice, stirring vigorously. Add the sparkling wine and late-harvest white wine, then add the orange slices, diced pineapple and pomegranate seeds. Serve the sparkling pomegranate punch over ice cubes, or create an ice mold the day before to float in the bowl.