The Mistletoe Martini is a Christmas martini that is is easy to make, it’s super fun, and it’s extremely festive. The flavors in this Christmas cocktail are light and refreshing which make it a great cocktail to serve during Christmas festivities and for Christmas dinner.
At my house, we are always looking for great Christmas cocktails to serve during the holiday season. In past years, we have gone to Christmas Eve gatherings where we have had a variety of different Christmas martinis such as a sugar cookie martini, a chocolate martini, candy cane martini, and other festive Christmas martinis. And each one was absolutely delicious, so this year as I began thinking about what holiday cocktails I was going to serve, I had to decide out of the variety of Christmas martini recipes, which one was going to inspire my own.
There are a variety of different holiday cocktails that you can serve during the holiday season using a variety of different ingredients, but when it comes to a holiday martini, you definitely want to make sure that is is refreshing and won’t weigh down the drinker before they even get to the food.
I am in a family who loves to have a cocktail during dinner, but they don’t want it to take away from the amazing flavors of our roast, macaroni and cheese, and holiday ham. Instead, they want a light holiday cocktail that will balance out the flavors and will want them asking for another. So this year, to pair alongside my Toasted Apple Cider Bourbon Smash, I decided to craft the Mistletoe Martini to give my family two amazing, tasty holiday cocktails that compliment any holiday dinner and will have you asking for another one before you finish the one you have in your hand.
A CHRISTMAS MARTINI: THE MISTLETOE MARTINI
This Christmas martini recipe is one of the easiest holiday recipes that you can make during the holiday season. While it’s not a cocktail that you can make as a batch and put in a pitcher such as the White Christmas Margarita, it is a cocktail that you can make ahead of time and serve quickly with the use of ornaments.
Unlike the espresso martini or a cholate martini, this holiday martini recipe is one that is made of lighter ingredients in contrasts to a lot of the stronger ingredients that you typically see in holiday cocktails. Around the holiday season, you’ll typically see a lot of cocktails including chocolate liqueur or creams, or even cocktails with a more pungent flavor such as the peppermint in the peppermint martini. But the Mistletoe Martini wants to give you that festive flavor without making you feel weighed down by milk or overwhelmed with strong flavors.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT Vodka FOR YOUR MARTINNI
If you’re making a martini, you’re going to need vodka, but you may be asking yourself which vodka is the best one to make your holiday cocktail. For the Mistletoe Martini, I would suggest staying away from any flavored vodkas since you don’t want your flavored vodka to throw off the flavors of your martini coming from your juices and the elderflower liqueur. Instead, aim for a base vodka in a trusted brand such as Absolut, Ketel One, or if you want to get really fancy, Grey Goose. Each of these brands have great vodkas that mix very well with other flavors and provide a smooth vodka taste. During the holiday season, these are also great vodkas to use to make any holiday themed shots to serve to your friends and family at the beginning or end of the night depending on what you have planned.
One note that I always tell those making martinis is that when you are mixing your cocktails, make sure to add the ice last. With vodka, along with other spirits, adding the ingredients to the vodka in the cocktail shaker prior to adding ice helps to blend the the ingredients before the ice not only cools but tones down the strong flavor of the vodka and the rest of the ingredients. If you add vodka over ice, as you are pouring it over the ice, you are initially diluting the vodka before it mixes with the other ingredients.
FLAVORS OF THE Mistletoe Martini
The Mistletoe martini is a festive Christmas cocktail with a light and refreshing taste because of the ingredients that are included in the cocktail. In this cocktail, you’ll find refreshing ingredients typical to the holiday season such as cranberry juice, pomegranate juice, and elderflower liqueur. The elderflower liqueur is a key ingredients to having the light and refreshing pop in the cocktail. The liquor brings a sweetness to the other juice and tart flavors that you find in the other ingredients.
Elderflower liqueur has been a great liquor to use in a variety of cocktails. I’ve used it, not only in holiday cocktails, but in cocktails in each season especially when I am trying to make a refreshing cocktail that needs other citrus flavors balanced with a sugary taste. Though the use of simple syrup does help with balancing the sweetness, elderflower liquor does more than just add sweetness, it adds a flavor unique to the palette that is great for the tastebuds. There are a variety of different brands that sell elderflower liquor, but my favorite and most dependent is St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur. Crafted with care, this liqueur is great to mix to create a variety of different cocktails with a variety of different flavors.
SERVING YOUR Martini IN AN Ornament
Now this type of serving is not one that I can up with myself and I was highly inspired by a variety of different cocktail recipes that I saw on Pinterest. With many of the martini recipes that I saw being made around the holiday season, I noticed that many were using the ornament as a way to serve their cocktail.
Serving your cocktail in an ornament is a great way to make your Christmas martinis look even more festive than they already look and taste, and it’s a great way to have your martinis premade so that you can focus on other hosting tasks during your holiday gathering. When making your cocktail, you’ll want to make as many cocktails in your cocktail shaker as your shaker will allow. If you have a larger cocktail shaker to make 4-5 cocktails at once, make sure the measurements are correct, shake, and then evenly pour in your ornaments.
For the ornaments, I simply when to my local craft store and found DIY plastic ornaments. I noticed that some others who did the ornament cocktails opted for glass ornaments, but I opted for the plastic to be safe. You can also try something different by putting the ornaments in different shapes.
When you’re ready to serve, there are two ways to present that are going to make people want to try out your cocktail. You can put all of the garnishes and the ornament in the martini glass and serve with or without a sugared rim. The key garnish to this cocktail is the sugared cranberry, but to add more, I suggest rosemary and mint leaves. Another way to serve is to hand your ornaments from a small tree and let your guests pick up a glass and then pick an ornament off the tree. You can then keep some more ornaments aside and keep “refilling” the tree.
