Christmas Cocktails

For the Christmas bring on a few festive cocktails with a taste of the season. For all these use unsweetened cranberry juice.

 

Poinsettia Cocktail

• ½ oz Cointreau or Triple Sec
• 1 oz cranberry juice
• 2-3 oz Champagne or good sparkling wine
• Cranberries for garnish (optional)
  

Put the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Pour into a Champagne flute and serve with a few cranberries on top.

 

Christmas Martini

• 1 oz cranberry juice
• 1 oz vodka
• ½ oz Cointreau
• ½ oz lemon juice
• 2 tsp simple syrup
  
• Slice of lemon peel for garnish (optional)
  

Chill a cocktail glass. Put the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Pour into glass and serve with the lemon peel on a skewer.

 

Rudolph's Sleigh Sidecar Cocktail

• ¾ oz lemon juice
• 1¼ oz Cognac or good brandy
  
• ½ oz Cointreau
• ¼ oz ginger syrup or ½ tsp grated ginger or a pinch of dried ginger
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Ginger slice and/or slice of lemon peel for garnish (optional)
  

Chill a cocktail glass. Put the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Strain into the cocktail glass and garnish.

 

Christmas Margarita

• 1½ oz cranberry juice
• 1½ oz Tequila (use blanco or reposado)
• 1 oz Cointreau
• ½ oz fresh lime juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• cranberry and lime wedge
• flaky sea salt or coarse salt
  

Chill a Margarita glass and rim with salt. Put the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Pour into the cocktail glass and garnish with a wedge of lime and a cranberry on a skewer.

 

Pepperment Alexander

• 1 oz Peppermint schnapps
• ½ oz Vodka
• 1½ oz Creme de Cacao
• 1½ oz Heavy cream
• Mini candy canes
  

Crush some of the candy canes into fine chips. Chill a cocktail glass and rim with the crushed candy cane. Put the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Pour into the cocktail glass and garnish with a candy cane.

Peppermint Alexander

Kástra Elión vodka

Kástra Elión is an interesting vodka from Greece made from olives and grains. It has a distinctive but light olive taste. Great alone or, of course, in a Martini or other cocktail.

The Thin Man

From the classic movie series The Thin Man from the 1930s, the lead character, Nick Charles (as portrayed by William Powell), epitomized the style of post-prohibition New York high-life. "Highballs and cocktails, he announced, "the long and the short of it."

Here are just a few of the cocktails from the movies of the golden age of Hollywood.

Nick Charles' Dry Martini (from The Thin Man)

2½ oz gin
½ oz dry vermouth

Stir ingredients with cracked ice and pour into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with either a lemon zest, olive or cocktail onion (which makes it a Gibson).

General Sternwood's Champagne Cocktail (from The Big Sleep)

1 sugar cube
2 or 3 drops Angostura bitters
⅔ oz Cognac
6 oz Champagne

Soak sugar cube with Angostura bitters. Place cube in bottom of Champagne flute. Add Cognac, fill with Champagne. Garnish with a twist.

Sugar Kane's Manhattan (from Some Like It Hot)

2 oz rye whisky
½ oz sweet vermouth
1 dash Angostura bitters

Shake ingredients with cracked ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.