Getting ready for the Christmas Party

November 11, 2020

Over the weekend I did manage one fun job. I got started on the Christmas party cocktail recipe. Last year I designed a cocktail for one of my classes and it was a success. This year as my students will be at home and don’t need to worry about driving I decided it made sense to extend it to all of them. I will actually be making two recipes this year. One with and one without alcohol. Both will have a cranberry theme (chosen by a student). If you would like to play along with the alcoholic version you will need to make the cranberry liqueur in advance. I am basing mine on this recipe, http://www.guntheranderson.com/liqueurs/cranberr.htm . I say basing because I am just infusing the alcohol with the flavours. I will add the sugar syrup at bottling stage. I do this method for other flavours and I think it works quicker for me that way. It also lets me use a slightly smaller container. I plan on giving the alcohol at least a week to work its magic and suck up all the flavour it can. I have made the spiced version, after all this is a Midwinter/Christmas cocktail. You don’t need to make a full batch of this liqueur unless you want to, and it may make good Christmas presents. So do feel free to reduce the quantities. Other than this I am trying to restrict myself to things that are readily available or people may already have. It does make this a bit trickier but I think I will cope. The non alcoholic version will need cranberry juice and yes I suspect if you don’t want to make you own alcohol that may work in the cocktail, but I am not promising. I would suggest freezing the orange and lemon that you have used the peel of, I am expecting to use one or the other sliced with the cocktail. All going well both drinks will be spiced cranberry and orange themed.