Witchy Recipes

Ingredients:
Leaves from 4 sprigs of mint
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups seltzer water
6 cups passion fruit juice
1 lime
ice cubes
6 passionflowers
Instructions: Bruise the mint leaves with the sugar in a mortar and pestle. Transfer the mix to your punch bowl. Pour seltzer water and fruit juice over the leaves. Squeeze in the juice of the lime. Add ice cubes and garnish with passionflowers. Substitute club soda or sparkling water for seltzer water if desired. One note for serving: You should NEVER get passionflowers that have been grown non-organically, because they will almost definitely have chemicals on them that you do NOT want near your food! If you have no way to acquire passionflowers (or even if you do and you just like this idea), I might suggest investing in some rose-shaped cake pans--they're usually in a set of four or six and make cupcake-size cakes--and filling them with water and freezing to make big pretty flowery ice cubes. You can even sprinkle some mint leaves in there to freeze into the cubes. It looks beautiful, but believe me, it won't last long under the hot sun!

Yield: Serves 8 to 10
Source: Wood, The Wicca Herbal
Use for: Litha

2 cups boiling water
1 cup honey
4 cups cranberry juice
2 cups orange juice
1 cup lemon juice
1 quart ginger ale
Ice cubes

Combine boiling water and honey, stirring to dissolve. Chill. In large punch bowl, combine cranberry, orange and lemon juices. Stir in honey mixture. Just before serving, add ginger ale and ice cubes. Garnish with strawberries.

There is an old Swedish saying, “Midsummer night is not long but it sets many cradles rocking.” In Alaska, where the summer nights are also long, 72% of babies are conceived between May and September. Perhaps it is a carry-over from summer solstice celebrations that June is still a popular month to get married. As the character Jose Ferrer plays in Woody Allen’s delightful film A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy concludes, “These woods are enchanted! Filled with the lucky men and women of passion…”