Enhance your Thanksgiving feast with a festive cocktail or two. Here are 15 fresh recipes to consider for your celebration.
Prairie Natural Appletini
2 oz. Prairie Organic gin
2 oz. Fresh apple cider
¼ oz. Fresh lemon juice
½ oz. Simple syrup
Combine ingredients in shaker and Shake with ice. Strain over fresh ice and garnish with an apple slice or cinnamon stick.
The mixologists at Prairie Organic created this recipe.
Toffaha Toddy
2 oz. Lairds Bonded apple brandy
1 oz. Honey syrup
½ oz. Lemon juice
½ oz. Cynar
¼ oz. Allspice Dram
One half of a baked apple*
Shake all ingredients with baked apple pieces (no ice), strain into a warmed glass, and add 2 oz. boiling water. Garnish with a long strip of apple peel wrapped around a cinnamon stick.
*For the baked apple:
Peel and core an apple, stick cloves and pieces of a cinnamon stick into the flesh and bake covered for around an hour at 350 degrees.
The mixologists at Levant, a French-Arabesque restaurant in Portland, OR, created this recipe.
Autumn Woods
2 oz. Partida Reposado tequila
⅛ oz. Agave nectar
3 Sage leaves
3 Dashes Regan’s orange bitters
Walnut liqueur
In first glass, rinse with walnut liqueur and fill with crushed ice. In second glass, muddle sage. Add in all ingredients, stir with ice. Toss out ice in first glass and strain ingredients from second glass into it. Garnish with a sage leaf.
Mike Ryan, head bartender at Sable Kitchen & Bar in Chicago, created this recipe.
Spicy Pear Cooler
1 ½ oz. Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition Scotch whisky
¼ oz. Ancho Reyes chile liqueur
¼ oz. Lemon juice
¼ oz. Honey
2 oz. Ginger beer
Wedge of ripe pear
In a mixing tin, muddle the pear with honey and lemon. Add the Scotch and liqueur and shake. Double strain over fresh ice into a Collins glass. Top with ginger beer and garnish with a pear slice.
Pumpkin Pie Old Fashioned
1½ oz. Cutty Sark Prohibition Edition Scotch whisky
½ oz. Grand Marnier
2 tbsps. Pumpkin puree
1 oz. Maple syrup
Garnish with orange peel
Combine pumpkin puree, whisky, syrup and Grand Marnier in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and strain through a fine mesh strainer into a chilled old-fashioned glass filled with ice. Garnish with orange peel.
The mixologists at Cutty Sark created these two recipes.
Falling Leaf
1 ½ oz. Leaf vodka
1 oz. Lime juice
½ oz. Grapefruit juice
1 oz. Hibiscus syrup (1:1 Hibiscus and simple syrup)
Pinch of ground clove
Ginger beer
Combine all ingredients except ginger beer in a mixing tin. Add ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a Collins glass, top off with ginger beer, garnish and serve. Garnish with a lime wheel and clove pods, or a Hibiscus flower.
Juyoung Kang, lead mixologist at BLVD. Cocktail Company in Las Vegas created this recipe.
Butternut Squash Cocktail
3 oz. Purity Vodka
1 oz. Butternut squash puree*
½ oz. Butternut squash seed/cinnamon brown sugar syrup
1 barspoon Lemon juice
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until ice cold. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass with a half rim of the squash seed/cinnamon brown sugar.
The mixologists at Purity created this recipe.
Spiked Apple
1 oz. Ketel One vodka
½ oz. Stirrings Apple Liqueur
1 oz. Apple cider
½ oz. Fresh squeezed lemon juice
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake over ice. Pour contents into a rocks glass. Garnish with an orange slice.
The mixologists at Ketel One created this recipe.
Thanksgiving Turkey
2 oz. Stillhouse Original moonshine whiskey
2 oz. Fresh-juiced squash
¾ oz. Browned butter
¾ oz. Sage simple syrup
Combine ingredients in mixing tin. Shake with ice and fine strain into rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a whole cinnamon stick.
The mixologists at Stillhouse created this recipe.
Harvest Pumpkin Toddy
1 Lemon wedge
1 oz. Bourbon
½ oz. Frangelico
1 scoop Spiced Pumpkin mix
½ cup Boiling water
Squeeze lemon wedge into a mug. Measure in bourbon and Frangelico. Carefully measure in the scoop of the pumpkin mix. Measure and add the boiling water. Stir until well mixed.
The mixologists at The Heathman Restaurant & Bar in Portland, OR, created this recipe.
Cranberry Orange Margarita
1 ½ parts Sauza Blue Silver 100% Agave tequila
½ part DeKuyper Triple Sec
4 parts Cranberry juice
2 parts Orange juice
2 Oranges
½ cup Cranberries, frozen
2 tbsp. Sugar
Zest one orange with a spice grater and combine with sugar. Cut the zested orange into wedges. Rub a wedge of orange around half the rim of your glasses. Roll the glasses through the sugared orange zest.
In a shaker, combine the rest of the sugar and orange zest mixture with the cranberry juice, orange juice, tequila, orange liqueur, and the juice from the orange. Twist an orange peel from the other orange over the drink and place on the prepared glass, top with frozen cranberries.
The mixologists at Sauza created this recipe.
Smashing Harvest
2 parts American Harvest organic vodka
1½ parts Leopold Brothers NY Sour Apple Cordial or other apple liqueur
¼ part Fresh lemon juice
¼ part Agave nectar
2 Thin slices of ginger
Muddle ginger with agave nectar in a shaker. Add remaining ingredients and add ice. Shake well and strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.
The mixologists at Sydney Frank created this recipe.
Holiday Sparkler
3 oz. Ruffino Prosecco DOC
¾ oz. Apple cider
¾ oz. Cranberry juice
1 tsp. Maple syrup
Squeeze of 1 lemon wedge
Add ingredients directly to a mixing glass with ice and stir briefly. Strain into a chilled champagne flute that has been rimmed with cinnamon sugar. Garnish with a mint leaf floating on top.
Mixologist Jonathan Pogash created this recipe.
Brewed Awakenings
1 ½ parts Hornitos Black Barrel tequila
1 ½ parts Coffee liqueur
¼ part Vanilla syrup*
1 part Heavy cream
Combine all ingredients in a glass and serve.
*For vanilla syrup, mix together 1 part sugar, 1 part water and 1 part vanilla extract. Bring to a boil and cool before serving (approximately 1-2 minutes).
The mixologists at Hornitos created this recipe.