Cold Holiday Cocktails to Further Chill The Cockles of Your Heart

In the spirit of holiday excess and fortification against the trying nature of family gatherings (if your family is delightful, feel free to skip along; you don’t need any of what we’re serving), here’s a selection of videos demonstrating how to make several cold, winter holiday-themed cocktails (Hattie already covered the warm ones). Eggnog is represented, as are other traditional tastes like cranberry and peppermint and gingerbread!

I intended to simply copy online recipes, but when I started stumbling through the vast YouTube library of online “mixologists” (I will never be able to take that title seriously), I knew I had to share the wealth of their ecstatic, bored, wacky, and slightly anal  step-by-step videos.

Christmas Cosmopolitan

This man is extremely peppy, so I apologize if this video is too obnoxious to finish. After he’d shaken and poured the cocktail about halfway through, I clicked randomly through to the end–I don’t think there was much worth seeing after that, besides him tasting the drink and describing its flavors in a non-pretentious but remarkably animated manner. The ingredients, below:

– .5 oz. couintreau

– .5 oz. cranberry juice

–  1 oz. vodka

– .5 tsp lime juice

Peppermint Patti

“This video bartending lesson is brought to you buy American Bartenders School, where in just one or two weeks you can be fully trained and ready to work as a professional bartender!” I am not kidding when I say that line hooked me, as did the hyper-serious, methodical old man mixing it up. But enough about my uncertainties about the future, on to the drink (which is simple, but tasty):

Р.75 oz. cr̬me de cacao

– .75 oz. peppermint schnapps

– approx. 1 oz. coffee cream

Santa’s Sleigh

This drink is basically for people who can’t decide if they want a milkshake or to get drunk. Cheers! This season you can have it both ways! As Sandra Lee points out, be sure to leave out the alcohol if you serve this to children. LOL. Also, “I’m going to be drinkin’ this while I’m makin’ those cookies for you!” So Sandy admits to imbibing on the job…this explains so much. The ingredients below make about four cocktails:

– .5 cups brandy

– .5 cups amaretto

– 2 cups eggnog

– 1 tsp nutmeg

– .5 cups vanilla ice cream

– white sugar to coat glasses

– either 4 cinnamon sticks or 4 candy canes for garnish

Gingerbread Christmas Cookie Martini

From the electronica music that punctuates the entirety of the video to the cartoon gingerbread border hovering around the screen’s edge, this video will delight and mystify you. Word to the wise: this involves making your own gingerbread syrup, which is labor-intensive, so you might just buy pre-made gingerbread syrup (it exists; I googled it). Ingredients:

Gingerbread Syrup

– 2 inch piece of ginger – sliced

– 1 thin slice orange

– .75 cups each water and sugar

– 1 cinnamon strick

– a pinch each ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg

The Actual Drink

– 1.5 oz. vanilla vodka

– 1 oz. ginger syrup

– .5 oz. kahlua

– 2 oz. milk

– 1 oz. half-and-half

Garnish

– a mini-gingerbread cookie

– a crystallized ginger slices