Mixing It Up for the Holidays: Festive Cocktails with an EDGE

The holidays are a wonderful time to celebrate our community's diversity. Whether your prefer vodka or rum, straight up or on the rocks; celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Diwali, Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice, we've mixed up the perfect selection cocktails and mocktails to get your party going!

Designed to conjure childhood reminiscences of toys and trees, festivals and beloved characters, these delectable libations are ideal to serve at either a family dinner or festive holiday party. Simply mix up a batch and you'll be creating your own tasty, new memories.

And for those friends or family members who can dampen any holiday gathering, these drinks will work like a charm. Just introduce those cheap Scrooges and heartless Grinches to any one of these concoctions and watch as they loosen the purse strings, show some heart and share in the spirit of a traditional holiday. And what better way to share in all the great traditions like tree trimming or eight nights of presents than with a cocktail that brings the spirit of the season to life.

Let's celebrate this special time of year with a festival of light in a glass or an aromatic, spicy potion to remind us all of the rich harvest we enjoy. Let's dream of sugar plum fairies, snowflakes, mistletoe and menorahs while enjoying specially crafted brews that sing of the glorious season at hand.

As the Winter Solstice brings us to another amazing, yet frigid season, we can snuggle up to our loved ones while enjoying any number of these inspired creations, be it a spiked warm cider, a new twist on the classic Bloody Mary or a tasty mocktail.

At holiday time, great cocktails with the ones we love truly remind us that it really is a wonderful life indeed!

ZUZU'S PETALS
1.5 oz Chambord vodka
4 oz White cranberry Juice
� oz Rose water
Dash Rose syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into hollow-stemmed glass. Garnish with rose-flavored Turkish Delight candy. This delicate cocktail will make you happy to be alive!

SCROOGE HUMBUG
5 oz Iced coffee
1 oz Godiva coffee liqueur
1 oz Brown Cr�me de Cacao
� oz Blue Curacao

Shake with crushed ice, pour into 19th century-style goblet and garnish with a gold foil chocolate coin. Like Ebenezer, you'll get greedy for it!

KWANZAA MARY
2 oz Absolut Peppar Vodka
6 oz V8 vegetable juice
� Teaspoon Berbere African spice
Squeeze of fresh lemon and lime

Shake with ice cubes, pour into large tumbler. Garnish with black & green olives and a baby corn and celebrate this spiked harvest.

DIWALI DELIGHT (MOCKTAIL)
3 oz coconut water
Teaspoon cardamom syrup
2 oz seltzer
Pinch of saffron

Stir ingredients with ice cubes, strain into a Champagne coup. Drop in a silver-coated almond and watch the light dance.

OH TANNENBAUM
2 oz Zyr vodka
1 oz Zirbenz Stone Pine liqueur
3 oz White cranberry juice
� Teaspoon simple syrup

Stir and pour over star-shaped ice cubes filed with edible gold leaf for a holiday tree you'll always remember.

GRINCH JUICE
1 oz Bacardi Grand Melon rum
1 oz Midori melon liqueur
� oz Blue Curacao
5 oz Mountain Dew

Stir ingredients with ice, pour into a glass with a shredded coconut rim. It's the perfect way to warm the heart of your Grinch.

SPINNING DREIDEL
2 oz Smirnoff Blueberry vodka
� oz Blue Curacao
3 oz White grape juice

Shake with crushed ice, pour into a rolling rocks glass rimmed with large grain white sugar. Have eight of these and you'll be spinning!

SOLSTICE CIDER
2 oz Apfelkorn Apple Schnapps
4 oz Warm apple cider
� Teaspoon clove syrup

Shake all ingredients (NO ICE) and pour into a glass mug, garnish with a sprig of fresh rosemary. A few of these and you'll be seeing The Green Man!

RUM RUM RUDOLPH
2 oz Captain Morgan's spiced rum
5 oz Cream soda
Dash of Fee Brothers Cherry Bitters

Stir with ice cubes, pour into a tall flute, drop in a cherry. When you get to the bottom, you'll be kissing Rudolph's nose!

SUGAR PLUM FAIRY
2 oz Pearl Plum vodka
1 oz White Plumb brandy
3 oz White cranberry juice
Dash Fee Brothers Plum Bitters

Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a fresh plum slice coated in pink sugar. It will make your visions dance in more than your head!