Heading Towards the Craziest Night of the Year

In the spirit of celebration and joy, we have decided to provide some of the unavoidable details of the New Year's Eve celebrations which for sure contribute to the overall atmosphere – drinks. If you thought we are going to write about cocktails, you were absolutely right. This is about cocktails, cheerful, tasty and attractive, just like your mood should be in the New Year's Eve.

The masters of mixing various ingredients into cocktail creations create wonderful festive cocktails. Here are recipes for some of drinks that can be easily made at home.

Holiday Punch

Ingredients
2-48 oz. (1.36 l) cans pineapple juice
1-40 oz. (1.14 l) bottle cranberry juice
2-750 ml bottles soda water
1 liter strawberry, raspberry or lime sherbet

Optional
1 ½ oz. Vodka (for an individual cocktail)

Preparation
Mix juices in a punch bowl. Add soda water and top with scoops of sherbet. For an individual cocktail add 1 ½ oz. of Vodka. Decorate with candied fruits. This amount makes approximately 16 (250ml) servings.

The Cranberry Celebration

Ingredients
3 oz. cranberry juice
2 oz. orange juice
1/8 oz. lime cordial
soda water
frozen cranberries

Optional
1 ½ oz. Vodka

Preparation
Fill the cocktail shaker with ice and add cranberry juice, orange juice and lime cordial. Shake sharply and strain into a collins glass filled with ice. Top with soda water and decorate with frozen cranberries. You can optionally add Vodka, 1 ½ oz. for an individual cocktail.

For those who avoid alcohol we have chosen:

Non-Alcoholic Spiced Punch

Ingredients
4 cups (1 l) cranberry juice
honey (to taste)
cloves
freshly grated nutmeg
cinnamon sticks

Preparation
Heat the cranberry juice, cloves and honey in a pan, stirring until the juice gets warm and honey dissolves. Season with nutmeg and serve in cups with cinnamon sticks. This amount makes 8 servings.

As for some nice 'homemade' recipe we would like to present a nice drink, which specially for this occasion comes from the kitchen of our dear member Alien – Holiday Boiled Wine À la Alien.

Ingredients
2 l red wine
1 lemon-half – freshly squeezed juice
2-3 oranges – freshly squeezed juice
3-4 mandarins – freshly squeezed juice
1 orange, 1 mandarin and half of lemon cut to pieces
sugar to taste
vanilla sugar
cinnamon
pepper
cloves

In a deeper pot heat the wine, sugar, vanilla sugar, cinnamon, pepper and cloves until boiling starts. When the sugar melts and dissolves, add the freshly squeezed lemon, orange and mandarin juice. Add fruits pieces (orange and mandarins and lemon) and boil just for a few seconds (if boiled longer with fruits the wine will become bitter). Remove the fruits and strain the wine into cups. Serve hot.

Cheers and happy holidays!

Sources: Recipes for holidays and other cocktails can be found at Whattodrink.com

We thank Alien for the Holiday Boiled Wine À la Alien recipe.

Author: Sandrina (sandrina_bambina)
Fragrantica Member