A staple of holiday home gatherings, punch is a hit at two upscale Monterey County bars.

Once it was a festive centerpiece, courted by the lowly and the elite. We read in the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol of Bob Cratchit’s punch for a meager family celebration. We also know that gentry the likes of George Washington featured favorite punch recipes at their elegant soirées.

But that was in one of the cocktail style’s many past lives. Punch has also suffered the indignities of college “jungle juice” parties and soft drinks poured over sherbert – don’t bother with sorbet – for the kids, sinking into barroom obscurity.

“People think punch is grandma’s house or going to prom,” Joe Valencia, of C Restaurant + Bar in Monterey, says in a rueful tone. “They don’t think of the elevated flavor profiles we can do now.”

Well, at least two bars in Monterey County seek to restore punch to its lofty station. And they are doing so with deft mixology. C in the InterContinental hotel on Cannery Row offers two punch options. One is a romp of rum and tropical fruits. The other, Steinbeck Punch, is laden with fruit, balanced by a soft bittersweet streak and breeze of salinity, with vodka as the spirit of choice.

At Lucia Restaurant & Bar in Carmel Valley’s Bernardus Lodge, Colleen Kelly changes the punch recipe according to the season. In the summer, flavors might complement the strawberry harvest. For winter, pear and ginger came to mind.

“The fun thing about punch is that you can mix so many things,” Kelly observes. “You can take any juice and spirit and find something anyone can enjoy.”

The current punch at Lucia may seem light and playful at first, but there is a lot going on – the tangy, bitter bite of cranberry cushioned by orange juice, the tingle of ginger waking a lofty floral sensation. Under its spell, it’s easy to forget the belt of vodka and liqueur.

What these drinks share is an emphasis on refinement behind the fun. The orange juice at Lucia is fresh-squeezed, for example. The spirits are top shelf.

With any punch, the challenge is to find a balance that will appeal to a table of guests, one perhaps accustomed to the solemnity of scotch, another drawn to the friendlier charm of fresh fruit.

Traditional recipes often called for a wine or spirit, fruit, water, sugar and spice. In Punch: The Delights (and Dangers) of the Flowing Bowl, noted cocktail historian David Wondrich traces the possible origin of the name to a Hindi word, paanch, which translates as “five,” the number of things that went into the bowl. (Wondrich observes that punch may have first been made for the British in India, although mulled wines and ciders predate the drink.) The signature Bar-Tenders Guide, published by America’s original mixologist, Jerry Thomas, in 1862, collected almost 80 recipes for punch – including one for which he urged moderation, especially among drinkers of “the softer sex.”

The rise of the modern cocktail at the end of the 1800s caused bars to turn from punch bowls to martini glasses. Yet the communal aspect of the punch bowl attracts both Kelly and Valencia.

“People love them,” Valencia says of punches. “They are group-oriented.”

Valencia’s team at C serves punch in a copper pineapple, suitable for one or two guests. At Lucia, the drink arrives in a gleaming copper swan, ladled into chalices of the same metal, with enough spirit for up to four people.

“When it comes in a swan – this is the domino effect,” Kelly points out. “It’s a conversation piece in itself, a crowd-pleaser.”

Copper vessels serve as more than eye candy, however. The metal tends to frost and remain chilled, preventing the ice from melting too quickly into the shared cocktail. Yet Valencia is considering a nod to the past.

“My goal is to go to thrift shops and look for bowls,” he says, adding that he would like to expand the punch menu. “That would be really fun.”

Both Valencia and Kelly see growing interest in the old cocktail form.

“This is definitely not a college punch,” Kelly says. “Now it’s more refined. It’s the revival of a classic.”