The best cocktails to impress your friends with this Christmas

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Do you want to get in the jolly Christmas spirit? A drink will help you get there!

Eggnog is considered the unofficial Christmas drink, a creamy, rich, lightly spiced drink mixed with rum, brandy or bourbon.

It’s a decidedly winter drink, which doesn’t lend to its popularity down in the Southern Hemisphere.

No, in this sweltering heat, we need our Christmas to be a bit more fruity, or sour, or sweet, or fresh.

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If you consider yourself a dab hand with a cocktail shaker and want to wow your family and friends this year, give one of these cocktails a go.

We’ve rounded up the best Christmas cocktails for 2021.

To join in on the festive buzz, all you’ll need is a cocktail shaker, a measuring cup (or jigger, if you’re a pro), and a strainer.

For gin lovers: Bombay Sapphire French 75

The best type of cocktail ends in champagne - and that’s a fact!

This incredibly simple and refreshing cocktail will go down a treat with anyone a fan of citrus flavours or gin.

Ingredients:

• 30ml Bombay Sapphire

• 20ml Fresh lemon juice

• 1-2tsp Caster sugar

• 60ml Prosecco

• Lemon twist

Method:

Step 1: Add all ingredients except Prosecco into a cocktail shaker and stir to dissolve sugar Step 2: Fill with ice and shake until frosted on outside

Step 3: Strain into a champagne flute and top with Prosecco

Step 4: Twist lemon peel and place in glass to garnish

For vodka fans: Grey Goose Le Grand Fizz

Speaking of simple, it doesn’t get much more so than this!

No shaking or frothing or any other bartending skills required - just pour all the following ingredients into a glass, top with the soda water and garnish with a lime wedge.

Ingredients:

• 35 ml Grey Goose vodka

• 15 ml Fresh lime juice

• 25 ml St-Germain

• 60 ml Cold soda water

• Fresh lime wedge

A holiday spiced rum favourite: Bacardi Spiced Mule

The previous two cocktails were all about embracing summer's refreshing, light flavours.

This drink brings in some of that traditional Christmas-sy flavours with the spiced rum and bitters while keeping it zesty and fun.

It’s a unique twist on the standard rum mule.

Ingredients:

• 50ml Bacardi Spiced Rum

• 100ml ginger beer

• 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

• 1 lime slice

Method:

Step 1: Fill a mule glass with ice

Step 2: Combine Bacardi Spiced Rum, ginger beer and the bitters into a glass

Step 3: Stir and pour into the mule glass

Step 4: Garnish with a lime slice

A whisky twist: Aberfeldy Honey Highball

This cocktail is another quirky twist on a classic drink combination.

Based on the whisky highball, the Honey Highball uses chilled chamomile tea and honey to give it a rich, aromatic taste.

Just mix the listed ingredients together and garnish with lemon.

Ingredients:

• 50ml Aberfeldy 12-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky

• 120ml Sweetened chilled chamomile tea*

• 5ml Lemon juice

• Lemon slice

*Once tea is brewed, add 1tsp local honey and stir to dissolve before chilling.

If you love the booch: Don Rickey

A ‘rickey’ is a classic cocktail that mixes a liqueur of choice with a zero-sugar drink, like soda water - a gin rickey is the most popular variation of this drink.

This absolutely Aussie drink uses fruit Don Papa Rum and kombucha - so in a way, it’s great for your gut health. Right?

Build the ingredients over ice and garnish.

Ingredients:

• 50ml Don Papa Rum

• 150ml Spiced Kombucha

• 20ml fresh lime juice

Wino’s forever: Starlino Rosé Spritz

Another super-easy drink (just combine all ingredients over crushed ice and garnish) that celebrates a fruity pink liqueur and Australia’s most popular alcoholic beverage: wine.

This spritz is perfect for Christmas day breakfast, served with croissants and strawberries.

Ingredients:

• 2 parts Starlino Rose

• 1 part Prosecco

• 1 part soda

The classic cocktail: Bacardi Mojito

You can never go wrong with a mojito.

With how refreshing they are, you’re sure to get a lot of requests for this drink if you’re playing bartender this summer.

Save yourself from being caught unaware - follow these easy instructions to make the perfect mojito.

Don’t forget the mint sprig!

Ingredients:

• 50ml Bacardi Carta Blanca Rum

• 25ml lime juice

• 12 Mint Leaves

• 2 Tsp extra-fine sugar

• 25ml soda water

Method:

Step 1: Take the lime wedges and squeeze them in the glass, gently press together the limes and sugar

Step 2: Add mint to glass, and press with bar spoon to release oil Step 3: Half fill the glass with crushed ice, add the Bacardi Carta Blanca Rum and churn

Step 4: Top with crushed ice and soda. Garnish with a mint sprig

For the connoisseur: ‘Rhuby Tuesday’ by Alex Boon at Melbourne’s Pearl Diver

This holiday period, Australia’s top bartenders have contributed their best recipes to make up the bumper hardback: Cocktails for Home Bartenders.

It’s the perfect Chrissie present for anyone who loves a bougie drink!

Try your hand at one of the featured recipes, the Rhuby Tuesday, that’s sweet, fruity and has the slightest bit of bite to it.

Ingredients:

• 40ml Fords Gin

• 20ml White Jasmine-Infused Aperol

• 5ml Grappa

• 20ml Salted Rhubarb & Vanilla Syrup

• 20ml Lemon Juice

• 2 Dashes Orange Bitters

Method:

Step 1: Add all ingredients to a shaker with cubed ice and shake hard.

Step 2: Double strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a lemon twist.

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