Creative Christmas cocktails
Fancy yourself a real home bartender and want to wow the crowds this Christmas? Then this is the perfect guide for you, featuring recipes for 10 creative cocktails to make this festive season.
Cocktail ideas
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The Christmas Negroni
This week we’re making a Yuletide take on a classic cocktail through the clever addition of tawny Port. It’s the Christmas Negroni!
Ingredients:
30ml Bathtub Gin
30ml Campari
An orange twist to garnish
Method:
Stir with ice and strain into an ice-filled tumbler, express an orange twist and then drop it in.
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
The Oak and Mistletoe
Straight out of top book Spirits of the Otherworld: A Grimoire of Occult Cocktails by Allison Crawbuck and Rhys Everett, this is a decedant, complex serve that brings together a host of delicious ingredients in one special drink. If you want to be a real mixologist you can make the roasted apple syrup in full, although there’s no shame in the simpler alternative. It’s a busy time of year!
Ingredients:
4 dashes Angostura bitters
15ml roasted apple syrup (or half cloudy apple juice and half sugar syrup)
Roasted or dried apple to garnish
Method:
Stir all ingredients in an ice-filled shaker or jug. Strain into a large rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a slice of roasted or dried apple.
How to make the roasted apple syrup:
Ingredients:
5g brown sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 apple, cored and sliced
150g of caster sugar
100ml of water
Method:
Toss the apple in a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar. Spread on a baking tray and bake at 175 degrees C in an oven for six minutes, turn and bake another six minutes. Keep a couple of slices back for garnishes. Add the rest to 100ml of water with the caster sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Take off heat and allow it to cool. Pour through a fine strainer into a jar. It should last for two weeks in the fridge.
- Prep Time: 10-20 min (depending on whether you make the roasted apple syrup)
- Serves: 1 person
Orange & Rosemary Old Fashioned
The beautiful Elijah Craig is a superb Old Fashioned bourbon at the best of times, but with the use of orange bitters and a homemade rosemary syrup, you can really take it up a notch with a festive twist.
Ingredients:
50ml Elijah Craig Bourbon
10ml rosemary syrup
3 dashes of Orange Bitters
Orange zest and rosemary stick to garnish
Method:
Then to make the drink, add the Elijah Craig Bourbon, the rosemary syrup and Orange Bitters to a rocks glass and stir with ice for 30 secs. Garnish with an orange zest and rosemary stick.
To make rosemary syrup: simply take 100ml of boiling water, and add 3 rosemary sticks, take off the heat and let sit in the water for 15 minutes. Then remove the rosemary, add 100g of sugar, and stir until dissolved.
- Prep Time: 10-20 min (depending on whether you make the rosemary syrup)
- Serves: 1 person
Mulled Duppy Toddy
A big rummy, mulled treat here from Duppy Share rum that combines a bunch of booze in a mini-punch. Substitute the crème de cassis for Ribena if you’re wanting something a little less punchy.
Ingredients:
50ml Duppy Share XO Rum
25ml Duppy Spiced Rum
20ml Crème De Cassis
50ml pineapple juice
50ml orange juice
25ml honey
25ml lemon juice
50ml water
A pinch of Cinnamon
Fresh nutmeg to garnish.
Method:
Add all ingredients to a pan and heat until hot, but do not boil. Pour into a mug and garnish with grated nutmeg.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Serves: 2 person
Atholl Brose Cocktail
Atholl Brose is one of the first recorded whisky cocktails and was often drunk during celebrations like Hogmanay or Burns Night. The Scottish drink is made from a combo of oatmeal, water, whisky, honey, and legend has it that the 1st Earl of Atholl spiked a well with a similar concoction to suppress rebels in 1475. His enemies went into battle inxociated, giving him victory. Legends aside, this is a top winter warmer, like a luxury Bailey’s. Some of you may remember that Gordon & MacPhail used to make a liqueur called Atholl Brose. This is a simplified version from Ballantine’s.
Ingredients:
60ml Ballantine's whisky
45ml oatmeal water (see below)
10ml Drambuie
10ml single cream
Method:
Prepare oatmeal water by soaking three heaped tablespoons of oatmeal in half a mug of warm water. Stir and leave to stand for 15 mins. Strain. Stir honey with Ballantine’s until honey dissolves. Add other ingredients, shake with ice and fine strain into chilled glass.
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Roasted Amaretto Negrotto
One of the simpler serves on our list but still a creative little number, this amaretto-based concoction is like a light, sweet, beginner’s Negroni that brings a lot of seasonal nutty warmth to the drink.
Ingredients:
30ml Bathtub Gin
30ml Contratto Bitter
Method:
Pour all ingredients into a rocks glass over ice and stir well. Garnish with a pair of cherries
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Bacardi Spiced and Sparkle
The vanilla rich, clove spiced nature of Bacardi Spiced pairs beautifully with the tart sweetness of the cranberry juice in this serve, which boasts a bold, juicy red wine float as its cherry on the cake.
Ingredients:
35ml Bacardi Spiced
10ml lemon
15ml sugar syrup
35ml cranberry juice
35ml red wine
Method:
Build all ingredients – except the red wine – in a glass over ice. Stir to combine, add more ice, then pour the red wine float over the top. Garnish with a lemon twist.
Top tips: To make a hot version, warm all the ingredients except the Bacardi Spiced in the microwave or over the hob, then add the Bacardi Spiced before serving.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Spiced Chocolate Sour
This chocolatey treat was created by Dan Berger from the Iceberg Consultancy for Motley at Qbic London and isn’t difficult to make at all. But boy does it all look and sound fancy. Your friends will be impressed.
Ingredients:
30ml Cognac
20ml fresh lemon juice
15ml clove syrup
20ml egg white
10ml Port
A dehydrated orange with clove pierced in to garnish
Method:
Dry shake the ingredients – except the Port – then shake with ice. Serve in large rocks glass, float the Port on top, and garnish with dehydrated orange with clove pierced in.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Cocoa Picante
If you want your chocolate hot this Christmas, then alternatively you could cosy-up at home with the Lost Explorer Mezcal’s Cocoa Picante. This rich and spicy take will prove very popular.
Ingredients:
200ml homemade hot chocolate
Orange peel and fresh cardamom to garnish
Hot chocolate ingredients:
600ml milk
50ml Ancho Reyes Liquor
1 bar of good quality chocolate, preferably the posh dark kind.
Method:
Warm all hot chocolate ingredients in a small saucepan on medium heat for a couple minutes, or until all ingredients dissolve. Pour the hot chocolate into a mug and add Lost Explorer Mezcal Espadín, stir gently. Garnish with an orange peel and freshly ground cardamom on top.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Ponche Navideño
Ponche Navideño is a staple of Mexican Christmas and New Year’s Eve festivities. It’s a cool alternative to a mulled wine, a sweet and fragrant punch that is sure to be a crowd pleasure.
Ingredients:
300ml rum
10 cups water
300g of grated piloncillo (Mexican-style unrefined brown sugar). Dark brown sugar is a suitable substitute.
5 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
2 apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1 pear, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1 tablespoon tamarind paste
1 cup dried hibiscus flowers
1/2 cup raisins
Fresh lemon juice from one lemon
12 lemon slices to garnish
Method:
In a large pot, add the water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and tamarind paste, and bring to a boil. Lower and let it simmer for 15 minutes, occasionally stirring to ensure the tamarind paste dissolves. Add the apples, pear, raisins, and hibiscus flowers (the latter tied inside a square of cheesecloth), and simmer for another 15 minutes. You want the fruits soft and the raisins rehydrated. Discard the cinnamon, clove, and hibiscus, first squeezing the remaining liquid out of the cheesecloth packet. Finally, stir in the lemon juice and rum. When serving, divide the punch between 12 punch glasses and garnish each with a thin lemon slice.
- Prep Time: 1hour
- Serves: 12 people
