When your official job title is “Chief Cocktail Officer,” you’d better know how to make a mean cocktail for any occasion! Freddie Sarkis, CCO and co-founder of Liquor Lab, is a renowned mixologist and spirits connoisseur who loves nothing more than crafting unique beverages to match the vibe of any event. The holidays are his moment to shine!
Liquor Lab is a new event space offering interactive cocktail-making classes with locations in Nashville, TN, and Louisville, KY. In class, students learn how to mix fun but simple drinks like spicy margaritas, old-fashioneds, and seasonal cocktails. Holiday cocktail and mocktail classes are some of Liquor Lab’s most popular offerings of the year.
Here, Freddie shares his expertise and exclusive holiday cocktail and mocktail tips—along with a few original recipes—just in time for the festive season. Grab your swizzle stick and get mixing!
How to Design Your Own Holiday Cocktail or Mocktail
Cocktail design can be a fun, creative, and highly rewarding experience. Fashioning a signature cocktail for your holiday soiree will level up the event and will surely impress your guests! Read on for Freddie’s expert tips to craft the perfect festive libation.
- Pick One Spirit and Stick with It
Crafting holiday cocktails can be challenging, so make your life easier by picking one of the following four spirits for all your concoctions: vodka, gin, bourbon, or rum. These four liquors are highly versatile crowd favorites, so you can meet nearly any guest’s preferences without breaking the bank or overcrowding your bar cart.
Once you select your spirit, go the extra mile by preparing one sweet and one boozy recipe, ensuring you have options for different palates.
- Select a Classic Base Recipe
Another trick to simplify your holiday cocktail experience is to start with a simple base cocktail. Perhaps you love an old-fashioned. Select and perfect a pared-down version of the classic, then give it a festive flair with additional tinctures, garnishes, and spices. Some ideas for a boozy cocktail base include Manhattans, Negronis, martinis, and gin and tonics. On the lighter and fruitier side, consider starting with a daiquiri or margarita.
- Batch Your Cocktails
It’s time to scale up! Ensure your base recipe can be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled so you don’t spend all your time at the bar. Invest in some good barware so you can churn out drinks with ease, perhaps even employing a trusted friend to act as your barback—running to grab you more supplies and help refresh juices and other ingredients when they’re low.
- Prep Ingredients in Advance
There are several do-ahead steps you can take to prep your holiday cocktails and mocktails before the party begins. Start by juicing all your citruses. Make 25% more juice than you think you’ll need—nothing slows a party down more than a 30-minute break to juice oranges!
Next, chop any herbs you might need, whether that be for the cocktails or for garnish. Keep them in pinch pots so they’re easy to grab as you go.
Finally, wash all your barware in advance, and consider purchasing backups for your most-used items. Also, be sure to wash and set out all of the glassware you’ve designated for the occasion.
- Get Creative with Presentation
Now that you’ve done the heavy lifting of selecting your spirit, perfecting your base cocktail, batching a few beverages, and prepping additional ingredients, the fun can really begin! Experiment with festive twists to make your cocktail your own and give it some holiday pizzazz.
Consider the color scheme of your party. Are you going with classic red and green? If so, maybe you can garnish your Manhattan with a smoked sprig of rosemary and a sugared cranberry. Blue and silver parties might call for glitzy cocktail glitter or a cardamom-sugared rim.
If you’re throwing a neighborhood-wide soiree, consider crowd-pleasing twists on favorites like a cranberry margarita. A more intimate dinner party might warrant a cocktail with a longer ingredient list, like the ones below.
No matter your direction, don’t be afraid to pull inspiration from unlikely places and put your own special stamp on the cocktail of your choice!
Four Holiday Cocktails to Get You Started
For your consideration, here are four holiday cocktails from Liquor Lab. Each includes a nonalcoholic substitute so anyone can imbibe!
Hot Apple Cider Punch
Serves 6
Ingredients:
4½ cups apple cider
2¼ cups spiced rum (substitute: chai tea)
2¼ cups cranberry juice
Cinnamon sticks
Orange
Instructions:
Bring apple cider to a boil. Stir together spiced rum and cranberry juice. Garnish with cinnamon sticks and orange slices, ladling into glasses while still warm.
Apple Grove Highball
Serves 1
Ingredients:
1½ oz. gin (substitute: green tea or a botanical-forward nonalcoholic gin alternative such as Seedlip)
¾ oz. lemon juice
¾ oz. apple cider syrup
2 dashes aromatic bitters
Ginger beer
Instructions:
Combine gin, lemon juice, apple cider syrup, and aromatic bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake until very cold. Strain the mixture into an ice-filled highball glass and top with chilled ginger beer. Stir gently.
Woodland Whisper
Serves 1
Ingredients:
1½ oz. tequila reposado (substitute: black tea)
¾ oz. lemon juice
¾ oz. blackberry sage syrup
1–2 dashes orange bitters
Instructions:
Combine tequila, lemon juice, blackberry sage syrup (simple syrup steeped with blackberries and sage leaves for 30 minutes), and orange bitters in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake until very cold. Strain the mixture into an ice-filled glass.
Pumpkin-Spiced Old-Fashioned
Serves 1
Ingredients:
1½ oz. chai-infused whiskey (substitute: chai tea)
¼ oz. vanilla demerara syrup
2 dashes aromatic bitters
1 dash orange bitters
Orange peel
Instructions:
Add the chai-infused whiskey, vanilla demerara syrup, aromatic bitters, and orange bitters into a mixing glass and stir until combined. Fill the mixing glass with ice, add the bourbon, and stir until well chilled. Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube. Take the orange peel and push it firmly against the rim of the glass, then drop it into the glass to garnish.
