Festive drinks for Diwali, Christmas and New Year
A festive table is a lot of sweet and very little to drink. These five are alcohol-free, cold and colourful, and each one is portioned by the cup, so a host can count the guests in cups. Hibiscus is the deep red, Peach the orange, Lemon the gold.
For Diwali there is a sparkler in flutes, a three-band falooda, a tray of rangoli shot glasses and a lassi bar. For Christmas and New Year, a cranberry sparkler with rosemary on the rim. Every one follows the same rule: the drink is cold, and the pearls go in last.
Christmas and New Year
Cranberry juice and sparkling water in flutes, a twist of orange peel, then a cup of hibiscus pearls once the fizz settles.
Diwali
Red, orange and gold on one tray. Set the glasses out before the guests arrive and pour as they come in.
The rule: cold, and last
Pearls are a finish. They go into cold or room-temperature food and drink, after the ice and the pour, and they are never boiled, baked or blended. One 40 ml cup is one serving, so every recipe here counts pearls by the cup.
What popping pearls are, and what is inside one
Planning for a crowd
One cup per guest per drink. Forty guests and one welcome drink each is forty cups; a second round is forty more. Mixed packs of three flavours make the tray look like the pictures.
The pearls in these recipes
- Hibiscus popping pearlsfloral, tart · in 5 of these 5
- Peach popping pearlssoft, juicy · in 3 of these 5
- Lemon popping pearlsbright, zesty · in 4 of these 5
More recipe lists
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Nothing on this page is a claim about what the pearls do.