20 Easy Christmas Cocktails
Christmas is arguably the best time of year to have a drink. The office parties. The festive fizz. A dram of whisky or brandy to keep out the cold. Then there’s the cocktails. These are 20 recipes for those who want to enjoy great drinks without spending all day making them. It's the busy season, after all.
Cocktail ideas
Contributed by
White Christmas Negroni
You can dream of a white Christmas, but it might not happen. A White Christmas Negroni, however, can be a certainty with the most festive gin in town: That Boutique-y Gin Company’s Yuletide Gin. It contains gold (just check out the sparkles), frankincense, myrrh, Christmas tree needles, an entire gingerbread house, and more traditional winter botanicals like nutmeg and cloves.
Ingredients:
25ml Yuletide Gin
25ml white vermouth
Method:
Build over ice and stir to chill. Garnish with clove studded orange wedge. Can also be batched into a pitcher to do as a group serve.
- Prep Time: 1 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Xmas in Manhattan
Essentially a merry Manhattan. With Port. Delicious.
Ingredients:
Dash of Angostura Bitters
A lemon twist to garnish
Method:
Stir the ingredients well with ice then strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass and serve with a lemon twist.
- Prep Time: 3 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
After Dinner Tea
A cosy fireside companion of a cocktail, Stauning's After Dinner Tea combines whiskey, double cream, and Earl Grey for a festive touch.
Ingredients:
20ml Stauning Kaos
20ml Creme de Cacao
30ml double cream
20ml sugar syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
15ml Earl Grey reduction
Method:
Add all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker and give it a good shake. Serve in a Coupe glass and garnish with grated chocolate.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Choya Extra Shiso with Soda
Bring some Japanese elegance to your Christmas this year with the refreshing combination of soda and Choya Extra Shiso Umeshu. Simple and festively red to boot.
Ingredients:
Soda water
Method:
Add the Choya Extra Shiso Umeshu to a glass filled with ice and top with soda water.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
Brockmans French 75
An elegant Christmassy cocktail for the kind of people who have silver Christmas trees and a seafood starter before the main event.
Ingredients:
25ml lemon juice
10ml sugar syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
Champagne to top
Method:
Shake the first three ingredients with ice, strain into a flute glass, and top with Champagne and creme de cassis on the top.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
XO Coffee
A warming mix of coffee and brandy that’s simple but sublime.
Ingredients:
60ml St-Rémy XO
60ml hot black coffee
30ml simple syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
Whipped cream
Method:
Add the first three ingredients to a mug and stir. Top with whipped cream.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Connemara Coldbrew
A decedant take on an Irish coffee swapping cream liqueur for the usual whiskey. Make sure you use high-quality ingredients and you’ll be rewarded.
Ingredients:
75ml coldbrew coffee
Fresh cream to top
Fresh nutmeg to garnish
Method:
Add the coffee and Micil Irish Cream to a mixing glass with ice. Stir until cold and strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Top with cream and garnish with grated nutmeg on top.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Mijenta Reposado Tequila Pink Polka Dots
A cocktail that tastes as good as it looks with a top Tequila at its base.
Ingredients:
30ml cranberry syrup
30ml lemon juice
10ml Maraschino liqueur
Method:
Shake all ingredients vigorously and strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with pink peppercorn
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Mermaid Salt Vodka Pine & Cranberry Buck
A lovely combination of flavours here with citrus, pine, salt, ginger, cranberries… Looks good too.
Ingredients:
30ml Mermaid Salt Vodka
10ml pine syrup
5ml fresh lemon juice
Ginger ale to top
Fresh cranberries and pine to garnish
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a rocks glass with ice then garnish with fresh cranberries and pine.
- Prep Time: 1 minutes
- Serves: 1 person
Under the Mistletoe
We can’t guarantee you’ll get to have fun under the mistletoe this year. But we can guarantee you’ll enjoy this tasty drink called Under the Mistletoe.
Ingredients:
60ml Dewar’s 12 Year Old
20ml lemon juice
30ml cranberry juice
2 dashes Angostura Orange Bitters
Method:
Shake ingredients and strain over fresh cubed ice in a Highball glass. Garnish with a stick of rosemary, a cinnamon stick, and a maraschino cherry.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
El Dorado 12 Year Old Winter Old Fashioned
An El Dorado Old Fashioned for those want to take the road to the perfect Christmas drink. Did you know that rum makes a great Old Fashioned? You will now.
Ingredients:
15ml Ruby Port
10ml sugar syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
2 dashes Angostura Orange Bitters
A slice of orange to garnish
Method:
Mix together the ingredients over ice in an Old Fashioned glass. Garnish with a slice of orange.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
Maid Hotter In Cuba
A naughty but still nice rum cocktail here that packs a spicy punch to warm those cold winter bones.
Ingredients:
20ml fresh lime juice
10ml Monin Gomme
Splash of St. George Absinthe Verte
Small bunch of fresh mint
A thin slice of cucumber and a handful of chilli flakes to garnish
Method:
Combine the rum, gomme, lime juice, and fresh mint in a cocktail shaker with a heap of ice and shake hard until the shaker frosts up. Splash the absinthe into a coupe glass, and rinse the inside of it thoroughly with the absinthe before discarding it. Fine-strain the cocktail into the absinthe-lined glass and float the cucumber slice on top of the drink, before sprinkling a few chilli flakes on top of the cucumber.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
The Tanner
A really delicious, spirit-forward cocktail here from Speyside distillery Aberlour, which speclaises in Christmas cake-style sherried whisky.
Ingredients:
40ml Aberlour 12 Year Old
10ml Kahlua
5ml Campari
5ml red vermouth
5ml sugar syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
2 dashes chocolate bitters
A Maraschino cherry to garnish
Method:
Combine all ingredients over ice and give it a hearty stir. Strain into a fancy glass filled with ice and then garnish with a Maraschino cherry.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
Jaisalmer Gold Tom Collins
A refreshing, light, and pretty cocktail perfect for a Christmas party, made using an Indian gin in a striking gold bottle. Make sure people can see the bottle you used, hide it in plain sight.
Ingredients:
50ml Jaisalmer Gold Gin
25ml fresh lemon juice
25ml sugar syrup (if homemade, make to a 1:1 ratio)
125ml soda water
Slice of lemon to garnish
Method:
Build the drink over plenty of ice in a Collins glass, stir gently and garnish with a slice of lemon.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
The Spicy Snowball
The Snowball is one of the definitive Christmas cocktails, but what happens if you add rum to it? The most Christmassy creation of all, a Spiced Snowball. And all it took was a bottle of Project #173 Christmas Pudding Rum.
Ingredients:
50ml Warninks Advocaat
25ml lime cordial or fresh lime juice
150ml lemonade
Method:
Fill a glass with ice and add 15ml of lime juice or lime cordial. Pour the advocaat, rum and lemonade over the ice and stir gently until the outside of the glass feels cold.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
The Hot Toddy
The Hot Toddy is a winer classic, a warming remedy for the sniffles and a great way to introduce somebody to the wonderful of world of whisky who is still a skeptic. We’re using an honeyed whisky liqueur here for extra effect.
Ingredients:
150ml boiling water
Juice of half a lemon
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves (slightly ground using pestle and mortar)
Method:
Fill heat-proof glass with boiling water and let it stand for 1-2 mins to warm. Empty mug and half-fill with 150ml of boiling water. Add all other ingredients to the glass and stir. Garnish with a slice of lemon and a cinnamon stick.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
The Elderflower and Raspberry
From the book Fever Tree: Easy Mixing, which contains over 150 recipes, The Elderflower and Raspberry is an ideal serve for the busy host. It’s big in flavour, looks great, and you don’t need anything else but some gin, Chambord, tonic water, and fresh raspberries.
Ingredients:
35ml Bathtub Gin
3 teaspoon Chambord Liqueur
Fever-Tree Elderflower Tonic Water
Fresh raspberries to garnish
Method:
Pour the gin and Chambord into an ice-filled Highball glass. Squeeze and drop in a lemon wedge. Top up with tonic, stir gently and garnish with a fresh raspberry.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
Cotswolds Christmas Gin & Tonic
A Christmas G&T requires a Christmassy gin and thankfully the fab folks at the Cotswolds Distillery created one. Watch with amazement at it clouds when you add the tonic water.
Ingredients:
Good quality Indian tonic water
A slice of orange and star anise to garnish.
Method:
Fill a large coupe glass with ice, pour gin, top with Indian tonic water and garnish with a slice of orange or star anise.
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Serves: 1 person
The Baileys Raspberry Ripple Cooler
This is for those who book summer holidays during the Christmas break. It’s a serve that means throwing all the rules out of the window and taking your traditional Christmas stock of Bailey’s and making a drink that’s cool, refreshing and full of summer vibes. Because some people don’t want to face reality and we respect that. It’s sweet and rich and cold.
Ingredients:
80ml of coconut milk
2-3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
1 pouch Funkin raspberry puree (or you can make your own)
Handful of fresh raspberries
Method:
Start getting your ice cream out of the freezer so it’s easier to scoop (I have all the pro-tips). Then pop the Baileys, coconut milk and a handful of ice into a blender and blitz that sucker until you get a light, foamy mixture. Then add one generous spoonful of raspberry puree to the bottom of each glass and top that with two or three scoops of vanilla ice cream. Drizzle another generous helping of the puree then pour over the Baileys and coconut mix until it comes to just below the top of the ice cream. Give it one last drizzle of your puree and you’ve got your cocktail. Oh, don’t forget to garnish with some fresh raspberries
- Prep Time: 10 minute
- Serves: 1 person
Hot Cider Punch
This is the biggest recipe of the bunch and it does require a bit of mulling. But mulling is a Christmas tradition and this recipe makes it very simple. It’s a Hot Cider Punch enhanced with the magic of Rumbullion!
Ingredients:
3 litres of good quality cider
150ml (or more) Rumbullion!
Juice of 3 lemons
Juice of 3 oranges
1 tablespoon of orange zest
½ tablespoon of lemon zest
1 tablespoon of sugar
6 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 knob of butter (optional)
Method:
Put all the ingredients except the rum and the butter in a large saucepan. Simmer gently for 30 minutes. Do not boil or it will become bitter and lose alcohol. Taste, depending on how sweet your cider is, it might need some more sugar. Leave to infuse for as long as you can. Gently reheat. Add the butter and the whisky. Serve in Toddy glasses garnished with an apple slice and cinnamon stick to use as a stirrer.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Serves: 12 people
More Christmas guides
Explore more
Sign up to our newsletter
Special offers, recommendations and expert advice to your inbox! Unsubscribe at any time.
I agree to the Privacy Policy