rushthatspeaks | because I can't sleep

Through a series of long and convoluted internet steps, I found myself at the Making Light Mormon cuisine thread (warning: may traumatize two groups of people: those who like Jello and those who do not), and then I realized-- as far as I know, only one person who reads this regularly was raised Baha'i, and that means that none of you know about the punch.

See, the Baha'i year has nineteen months of nineteen days each (plus either four or five intercalary days to balance things out), and each month-end/beginning is a holiday, wherein the local Baha'i community gets together to pray, do administrative stuff, and eat. The formal title of the event is in fact a Nineteen-Day Feast. Generally it goes one of two routes, pizza or potluck. (The group I grew up with alternated.) Other Baha'i occasions-- major holidays, weddings, retreats, the occasional guest speaker-- also require potlucks (and if you're lucky, the Iranian contingent brings the rice).

At all Baha'i potlucks at which anyone is making an effort, anywhere, you will be served the same punch. I mean it. Anywhere. I have had this punch at two separate religious camps, one of them a wilderness camp where it took a serious effort to truck in; I have had it at multiple weddings; I have had it throughout the lower forty-eight; I have confirmed sightings by people I trust of local-ingredient equivalents in both Mexico and eastern Europe.

What confuses me is that it is such a totally, absolutely Midwestern recipe, and yet I haven't had it at any non-Baha'i function, and it's so universal there.

So. Does anyone know about this? Has anyone encountered it anywhere else, in a non-Baha'i context?

Red Punch

Ingredients:

a large volume of Sprite or other generic lemon-lime carbonated beverage except 7-Up, which is not acceptable
an equal volume of red juice: best is Hawaiian Punch, but you may also use cranberry cocktail, cran-orange, or cran-white grape-- no cran-apple, no purple grape. If using cranberry substance, frozen in concentrate is best. If you are completely insane, you may use some flavor of red Juicy-Juice, and everyone will drink it and then treat you as though you are completely insane for at least the next three years
regardless of what volume of other juices you are using, you need one (1) container of frozen orange juice concentrate
one container generic orange sherbet, the cheaper the better-- Creamsicle-flavored is totally a great idea, but the point is that there should be no real oranges involved here. Size should range from between a pint and a gallon depending on how many people you are trying to feed

Process:

Non-fancy version: Throw everything in a punch bowl. Do not defrost concentrates first. Stir until froth on top turns orange. It will melt as people drink it; I always rather liked it entirely melted.

Fancy version: Fill a very large punch bowl with ice. Set a smaller punch bowl in on top of the ice, and combine all ingredients in that, using a scoop to put the sherbet in in chunks instead of just prying it out of the carton. Stir until juices are mixed. People will fish for chunks of sherbet with the ladle as they serve themselves. Do not ice punch directly. If you like, you may have cups full of ice, which people can pour the punch into, but do not put ice in the actual punch bowl.

Extra-fancy version: If and only if you are getting married, you may float halved maraschino cherries in the punch.

Please note that whatever you do to this, and in fact whatever you make it out of, it will still taste exactly the same.

I kind of want some now, but it's pointless to make for fewer than twenty.