Cocktails for a merry, tipsy Christmas

Not to live up to Irish stereotypes, but for me, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without booze; and so, for this seasonal column, it’s only fitting that I recommend some perfect yuletide drinks to get you slammed under the Christmas tree.

There are two broad bases you can work with for Christmas drinks — creamy ones and those with seasonal spices. You can do both, but these are the two broad playing fields, and just because you don’t like one kind doesn’t mean you won’t like the other.

There aren’t a lot of cocktails using cream (the classic or the alcoholic Irish one); the trick is to use a good Irish cream and add it to existing non-alcoholic drinks. Want a nice boozy milkshake? Want a hot chocolate that gets you blitzed? A creamier espresso martini? A drunken iced Matcha? Irish cream is your friend. My recommendation is Coole Swan — a major upgrade over Baileys.

You can also riff on existing cream cocktails. For a Grasshopper 2.0, switch the crème de menthe for orgeat and amaretto, swap the mezcal for rum and use Coole Swan instead of half the cream. You end up with a creamy, strong, nutty Christmas drink. Or just make a grasshopper with Irish cream, if you’re lazy. If you like mint, swap out the whisky in a Shamrock and use mezcal instead to make the “Bah Humbug,” (courtesy of creator Lucy Greenwood, whose work you can enjoy at the Dakota Hotel bar in Glasgow).

Don’t experiment too much with creating new creamy cocktails. They tend to be sickly sweet and have clashing flavors — and it’s easy to curdle the cream or Irish cream. General tips for making new cocktails or modifying existing ones: use coffee, chocolate, nut or mint liqueurs, with rum and whisky to round out and balance the sweetness. Stay away from acids (like lemon or lime juice) and vodka or gin.

The most important creamy cocktail of them all is the eggnog — and I have two recipes! (If you’re dairy free and want to try a nice alternative, I quite like Oatnog from Black Lines.) When playing around with eggnog, remember that it should ultimately taste like eggnog; so, though tequila “works,” just stick to rum, bourbon and cognac as your base spirits. Sherry, however, can make a nice addition; coconut rum works — and adding amaro is surprisingly good. Also, using Mr. Black coffee liqueur to make a coffee-flavored eggnog is incredible. You can use Irish cream instead of cream in eggnog, but given how boozy my version already is, I wouldn’t bother. You can also age your eggnog by storing it in your fridge for a few weeks, to amplify its flavor.

Across the street from creamy cocktails are the seasonal spice cocktails, which put Christmas drinking on easy mode. Basically, you add cloves, cinnamon and orange to something and it feels a whole lot more seasonal. But do it the right way. My favorite Christmas cocktail is a Decadent Seasonal Old Fashioned whose core ingredient is a champagne syrup infused with orange and cloves. And no, you don’t actually have to use Champagne — prosecco is cheaper and tastes the same — but Champagne, of course, sounds fancier.

To make it, pour equal parts (by weight) of your bubbly wine and superfine sugar into a small pot and add a decent helping of fresh orange peels and some dried cloves. Bring it to a boil, then cool and filter out the orange and cloves and you’re good to go. It’s just a perfect syrup and usable for so many different drinks. (A warning: if you use brown sugar, it’ll be too syrupy and smother the prosecco taste; use too many cloves, it gets a sharp taste.)

Want to make a seasonal whisky sour? Replace the simple syrup with your Champagne syrup and give it a Champagne float for good measure. Want to make a Champagne-based cocktail? Add triple sec or Cointreau to a flute, then some of your syrup and top it up with bubbly — and voilà! (Shoutout to Morgan Heil for the inspiration here.) This works for a spiced-up Bellini. Think of a classic cocktail that uses simple syrup, swap it out with this — and it will probably work. A maple-syrup or honey simple syrup with spices can be delicious as well.

You can elevate these by choosing spirits that fit the Christmassy feel. Try a honey rum like Rosemullion Honey — or something rich and dark, like my personal choice the beautiful Black Tot Finest Caribbean. For cognac, just buy Hine; it’s the best for the money. When whisky is involved, I tend to go for either bourbon — Woodford Reserve, Maker’s Mark, Elijah Craig or good ol’ Bulleit — but if you like peat, then an Islay Scotch. I’d recommend Port Askaig, Laphroaig or Bruichladdich. Stay away from Ardbeg though; it smells like bottled crematorium.

If you’re using bourbon, feel free to infuse the whisky with nuts (preferably walnuts), for some added seasonal flavor. Do this by roasting them in the oven, then crushing them up, adding them to a pot with an equal weight of whisky and slowly cooking them at a low temperature with the lid on. After a while, turn the heat off, let them cool, then store in an airtight container for several days before straining.

My general advice is to stay away from commercial seasonally-flavored spirits and liqueurs. Some can be good — particularly when from small brands — but infusing your own sugar syrup is so easy, so much more rewarding and produces such good flavor, I promise it will be worth it. Have a merry, tipsy Christmas!

Recipe

Decadent Christmas Old Fashioned

2 oz bourbon (nut-infused if you can be bothered)

1 oz champagne syrup (recipe above)

Dash of Jerry Thomas bitters

¾ oz Champagne as a float

Combine all (except the Champagne) in a mixing glass and stir down over ice. Double strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Finally, float Champagne on top, pouring it gently down a bar spoon. Garnish with orange peel and cloves.

Ross Anderson’s Simple Eggnog

1 oz Hine cognac

1 oz Black Tot rum

½ oz Champagne syrup

¾ oz whole milk

¾ oz whole egg

Tiny pinch of nutmeg

Add all ingredients to a Boston shaker with ice; shake vigorously; then double-strain into an ice filled glass. Top with nutmeg and shaved cinnamon.

Ross Anderson’s Decadent Eggnog

¾ oz Hine cognac

¾ oz Black Tot rum

¾ oz Bulleit bourbon

½ oz Giffard vanilla liqueur

½ oz honey

¼ oz champagne syrup

Tiny amount of Monin salted caramel syrup

2 oz whole milk

2 oz heavy cream

1 whole egg

Morsel of salted butter

Tiny pinch of nutmeg

Tiny pinch of fresh cinnamon

Tiny pinch of salt

1.Separate the egg and whisk vanilla liqueur, honey and caramel syrup into the yolk. Slowly add the spirits, milk and half the cream into the yolk mix, still whisking

2.Whisk the egg whites with the butter and tiny pinch of salt. Then add to the yolk while whisking

3. Add all of this to a shaker (or blender, if making large quantities) with a dust of nutmeg and freshly shaved cinnamon

4.Double strain into ice-filled glass

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s December 2024 World edition.