Low effort, high impact touches for a tasteful (not tacky) festive spread.
We are getting to the pointy end of the year, people, which means the social events are about to start ramping up (as if they hadn’t already). It’s likely your Christmas tree is up, the office KK is almost due and the neighbour has lit up the entire street with their lights and inflatables display.
Well, it’s time to bring a little bit of that festive energy to your cocktails – whether you are hosting or have been designated a batch-made cocktail for Friendsmas in the park, we’re going full OTT with the best festive garnishes for your drinks this season.
As adults, we’re probably not sucking on candy canes like we once were, but if you’d still like to put the hard cane-shaped lolly to good use, then stay with us. Grab your candy canes and crush those babies up – you can use a food processor or double-bag the canes and crush them up with a rolling pin. If you’re after a more rustic feel, go with the DIY crush. Then you need some sugar syrup – pop a few tablespoons into a bowl, and you want to flip your glass upside down and press it into the syrup so the rim is sticky. Transfer your crushed candy canes into a bowl and press the sticky rim of the glass into the crushed mix, and shimmy the glass around to get as much candy cane as you desire.
There’s no shortage of cocktails that would benefit from the candy-cane treatment, especially keeping things colour-matched with the likes of the Manhattan. But for us, we’re serving the Grasshopper – it’s both green (festive, duh) and minty. And for those of you who aren’t partial to the red and white treat, you could instead go for a snowy-look with coconut flakes.
First things first, you need a stencil. We’re going classic here with a snowflake, but you could opt for one shaped like Santa, bells, a Christmas tree – whatever tickles your fancy. If you’re an artsy-type, you might want to create your own, otherwise jump onto Etsy and order a ready-to-go stencil.
We reckon this is going to work best on a cocktail that has a frothy foam, which comes from a dry shake first, the kind that uses egg whites (or Aquafaba). Think drinks like an Amaretto Sour, Pisco Sour, Clover Club and French Martini. We’re going to need a dusting agent, given the egg white is, well, white, so rather than icing sugar, let’s go for a powder that we’ll be able to see – you could use cocoa powder, nutmeg, matcha, cinnamon or even coffee. If you’re going all out for Friendsmas, perhaps set up a station, with different stencils, dusting agents and let your guests do a bit of DIY.
If you’re celebrating Christmas Down Under, snowy-covered fruit garnishes are about as close as you’ll get to seeing that frosty magic this festive season. Forget snow angels, it’s all about sugar-dusted fruit for us. It’s cherry season here, which means there should be cherries a-plenty around.
Pick up a box of cherries and then, to get them looking like a winter wonderland, you can either roll them in egg whites or sugar syrup, and then dip the cherries into a bowl of sugar – regular or super fine will work here. You can skewer the cherries and garnish cocktails like a Manhattan or a Whiskey Sour, or place one on top of the ice cube in your Cherry Margarita. They make the best kind of edible garnish, if you ask us.
This one is for the overachievers – not only are you hosting and serving up delicious cocktails for Christmas, but you’ve also gone above and beyond (and been organised enough) to bake this garnish. Yep, we’re talking about homemade gingerbread houses. We’re going to leave you to find your preferred gingerbread recipe, but once you’ve locked that down, you want to make a flat (rather than 3D) gingerbread house and cut an inch-sized slit up the centre (where the door would be). Then, decorate until your heart’s content and slide that baby right onto the rim of your glass.
Cocktails we’re loving this garnish with include Eggnog (of course), our Baileys White Hot Chocolate (because hot choccies still have a place in summer) and our Biscoff Espresso Martini – simply swap the Biscoff garnish for your baked gingery treat.
Have you ever thought that rosemary looks like a Christmas tree? It’s the perfect festive garnish for all your Chrissy spritzes. You can have the sprig sticking out of the glass, or, and this is a pro tip, flip the sprig upside down, dunk it into the glass and nestle it among the ice so it stays in place.
It’s Christmas, so try this garnish in our Pavlova Spritz (swap the mint for rosemary), or the Limoncello Spritz is always a winner, as is the Grapefruit Spritz. Be sure you’ve got plenty of ice on hand to keep up with demand.
Santa hats for Christmas? Groundbreaking. These might be the cutest (and easiest) garnishes you’ll ever make. You’ll need skewers, a punnet or two of strawberries (depending on your group size), mini marshmallows and regular marshmallows in white. Start by cutting the cap (the leaves) off the strawberry, then mould a tiny marshmallow into a ball and push it onto a skewer. Next, add the strawberry to the skewer and push it up to meet the tiny marshmallow to create the pom pom on top (ensure you lead with the smaller side of the strawb). Then cut a regular marshmallow into thirds, shape a piece into a circle and push it up the skewer to meet the other side of the strawberry. And voilà – a Santa hat on a skewer.
You could add this garnish to just about any cocktail, but we’re going all in on the red theme and adding it to drinks like our Frozen Raspberry Cosmo, pehaps that other Cosmo riff of the Spicy Cosmo, and we also love it with the Sour Strawberry Highball and Bourbon Cherry Cola.
