How to make bar-like cocktails at home for your Christmas and year-end parties

Many more people are venturing beyond the cocktails they would normally mix for guests, to explore novel, intense flavours, infusing their drinks with spicy, smoky, super-sweet, and bitter tastes.

The cocktails-at-home trend—the lockdowns over the last year-and-a-half really fanned the desire to enjoy a bar-like experience at home—has led to several innovations. From cocktail mixers to edible perfumes and ginger ales, there are so many choices of ingredient to mix yourself a well-deserved drink.

All you need to do is find which recipe works best for you, add the right mix and ingredients, and making sophisticated bar-like cocktails at home becomes an easy breezy task.

Many more people are venturing beyond their cocktail comfort to explore novel, intense flavours, infusing their drinks with spicy, smoky, super-sweet, and bitter tastes.

Here's our guide to make-at-home cocktails for your Christmas/year-end at-home festive celebrations:

Christmas Stollen by Yangdup Lama

• 45ml cinnamon-infused bourbon whiskey
• 90ml Jimmy’s Whisky sour mix

• To infuse the whiskey, take the desired amount of whiskey in a glass bottle or jar and leave a cinnamon stick in it overnight or for longer.
• Shake the ingredients with lots of ice and serve over ice.
• Garnish the cocktail with an orange peel and a cinnamon stick.

ExpressOak

• 30ml Oaken Glow
• 30ml Espresso
• A spoonful (120 - 150ml) of vanilla ice cream

• Mix all the ingredients well with some ice cubes (in a cocktail shaker).
• Pour out into a whiskey glass and serve with a chocolate stick/roll.

Espresso Martini

• 40ml Absolut Vodka
• 20ml Kahlua
• 20ml of Espresso
• 3 whole coffee beans

• Fill a shaker with ice cubes. Add all the ingredients.
• Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.
• Garnish with coffee beans.

Grape Carrot Mojito by G. Ravi Kiran.

• 10 Black grapes
• 100ml Carrot Juice
• 30ml White rum
• 20g Orange chunks
• 20g Brown sugar
• Crushed ice
• 8 mint leaves

• Take a long glass. Add grapes, orange chunks, mint leaves and brown sugar in a glass. Muddle the ingredients with a muddler.
• Add crushed ice. Pour fresh carrot juice and rum into it.
• Garnish it with mint leaves, lemon slices and grapes, and serve.

Tipsy Santa by Deepak Sharma.

• 60ml Highbury Classic
• 10ml Salted caramel
• 5ml Chocolate Syrup
• 5ml Cheesecake syrup

• Shake all the ingredients with ice.
• Pour into a martini glass, garnished with chocolate, white chocolate, and sprinkles.

G&G (Grant’s & Ginger)

• Grant’s Distinction: 50ml
• Ginger Ale: 150ml
• ½ lime

• Add Grant’s Distinction into an ice-filled glass.
• Top with Ginger Ale and squeeze half a lime.
• Garnish with a lime wedge.
• The raisin cake-like richness of Grant’s Distinction adds a robust, malty character to this cocktail.

Yam Kir by Kiran Kumar.

• 60ml Belvedere
• 2 slices of kiwi fruit
• 30ml honey
• 30ml kiwi syrup
• 10ml lemon juice
• Glass to use: Margarita

• Rim the glass with icing sugar.
• Muddle kiwi fruit with sugar in a cocktail shaker.
• Add all the ingredients such as Belvedere, kiwi syrup and lime juice into the concoction. Add ice cubes to it and shake well.
• Garnish the cocktail with a slice of kiwi fruit.

Ponnje Toddy

Ponnje Toddy or palm wine is made using the sap of various species of the palm tree such as the palmyra, date palm and coconut palm. Here is how to make it with rum:

• 60ml Maka Zai Gold Rum
• 1 bar spoon orange marmalade
• 7.5ml ginger honey
• 120ml Earl Grey tea
• Spices such as star anise and cinnamon

• In a warm goblet, add 1 bar spoon of orange marmalade, Gold Rum, ginger honey and spices such as star anise and cinnamon. (The cinnamon can be burnt as well for a different experience.)
• Give it a nice stir till the marmalade dissolves.
• Add warm Earl Grey tea and garnish it with orange slices, studded with cloves, cinnamon, and star anise.

Whiskey cocktail

• 45ml whiskey
• 100-120ml Svami ginger ale
• Rosemary garnish perfume

• Blend all the ingredients.
• Top it off with two sprays of the Svami Rosemary garnish perfume, sprayed two to four inches away from the glass.
• The perfume will infuse the cocktail.

Tagetes Rush by Caitlin Hill.

• 50ml The Botanist gin
• 100ml Celesté Gold Rush Tea, brewed and cooled
• 25ml honey
• 20ml fresh lemon juice
• 100-150ml tonic water
• Handful of fresh mint

• Pre-brew your tea as per instructions on the teabag.
• Add 25ml honey of your choice. Stir and set aside to cool.
• In a glass of your choice, combine the gin, fresh lemon juice and fresh mint leaves.
• Give it a good muddle, add ice, Celesté tea and honey.
• Brew, stir and top with tonic (100-150ml recommended).
• Garnish with a mint heart and marigold flowers.

Moet & Chandon IMPÉRIAL 1869.

• 15ml agave syrup
• 2 dashes grapefruit bitters
• 1 dash orange flower water
• 100ml Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial Champagne

• Pour all the ingredients into the coupe glass and top with Champagne.
• Garnish with edible flowers.