Make your holiday season merrier with these amazing Christmas cocktail recipes
The Negroni
By Xavier Baker, Isle of Wight Distillery
With gin, now being a popular drink of choice, part of the reason for its success is due to the fun and experimentation you can have.
Trying different gins with different garnishes and tonics all leads to a fun drinking experience to be shared with friends.
Amongst many cocktails, the Negroni is a simple one to create.
The most widely reported version of this drink’s origin is that it was invented at Caffe Casoni in Florence, Italy in 1919. Legend tells that Count Camillo Negroni asked his friend, bartender Forsco Scarselli, to strengthen his favourite cocktail – the Americano (Red Vermouth Campari and soda water) – by replacing the soda water with gin. Scarselli added an orange garnish rather then the lemon you’d usually get with an Americano, and the drink took off. Before long, everyone was going into the bar for a Negroni.
Each bar tender/mixologist/restaurant will have their own twist or version of the Negroni. The new Smoking Lobster, Ventnor Seafront add a sparkling sake top to their Negroni. Dustin MacMillan of the Hix Bars, London replaces Campari for his own beetroot syrup. So do experiment and play to create your own version – there are no rules!
20ml Mermaid Gin
25ml Sweet red vermouth
25ml Campari
Pour gin, vermouth and Campari into a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a tumbler glass and garnish with a twist of orange peel.
Sit back and enjoy.
Darling Clementine
By Tipsy Wight
Oh my, this is a gorgeous cocktail combining the subtle citrus and honey flavours of Tipsy Wight® Quince Vodka Liqueur with the tangy, sweet flavour of freshly squeezed clementines served over ice cold Prosecco. A perfect party starter for the festive season. Clementines, a cross between an orange and a mandarin, were invented by Brother Clement Rodier, a French missionary working in an orphanage in Algiers in 1892. In his spare time he grafted two trees together and hey presto, clementines were born. They are such a Christmassy fruit, discovered by countless children buried deep in their Christmas stocking.
50ml Quince Vodka Liqueur
50ml Freshly squeezed clementine juice
150ml Chilled Prosecco
Add the Vodka liquer and clementine juice to a chilled cocktail glass and top up with the Prosecco.
Pornstar Martini
By Jamie at Thompson’s
Douglas Ankrah is the creator of this elixir. And at first dubbed the Maverick Martini after a shady club in Capetown, South Africa it was then renamed the Pornstar Martini, because of all the passion Ankrah would put into this drink. The ides is to eat the passion fruit first, then drink the shot glass of Prosecco and then enjoy the cocktail.
60ml Vanilla vodka
25ml Lime Juice
15ml Sugar syrup
Fill a cocktail glass with ice. Put all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and the seeds from half a passion fruit. Shake and strain into the chilled empty glass. Decorate with the other half of the passion fruit.
Serve with a shot glass of Prosecco.
