Cinnamon Apple Manhattan

This week’s #midweekmanhattan is made Christmas-appropriate through the addition of cinnamon and applejack:

Christmas Corpse Reviver #1

Photo courtesy of Jason Swihart, some rights reserved.

The third Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin for ‘rejoice’.  I’m choosing to rejoice in a Corpse Reviver #1.

Now this is a drink that is a long way from its more popular cousin, #2:  No citrus, no absinthe and instead, what is effectively a brandy-based Mannhattan with a Calvados twist and no time for bitters.

So there’s no call for bitters, and there’s no spritz of absinthe, so this leaves us with a seriously hard-hitting drink that’s going to punch the corpse back into life.

Believed to have been invented at The Ritz, Paris in the 1920s, Harry Craddock described this one as “to be taken before 11am, or whenever steam and energy are needed”, but, trust me, it is equally good later in the day:

1. Add 30ml mince pie cognac, 30ml Calvados and 30ml sweet vermouth to a mixing glass with cubed ice.
2. Stir for sixty seconds and strain into a chilled coupe glass.
3. Garnish with a twist of orange peel.

Christmas in Manhattan #2

Photo courtesy of Addison Berry, some rights reserved.

Rich and red, and imbued with all of the flavours of a good Christmas postprandial, the Christmas Manhattan #2 is this week’s festive #midweekmanhattan:

1. Add 50ml rye whiskey, 50ml Ruby Port, a teaspoon of agave syrup and three dashes of Angostura bitters to a shaker of ice.
2. Shake well and strain into a chilled coupe glass.
3. Garnish with an amaretto cherry.

Christmas Champagne Cocktail

(c) 2010 Fox.  All rights reserved.  

If you’re like us here at House of Bourbon HQ, right now you’re spending Advent Sunday sat by the fire, basking in the glow of your Christmas tree, listening to some Christmas music and wrapping presents or Christmas shopping (depending on your level of organisation).

If so, you need just the right drink to celebrate having Christmas totally under control, and nothing says celebration quite like the Champagne Cocktail – especially given this festive twist.  That’s right, this is the first of our Advent Sunday drinks making use of the mince pie cognac we made earlier this week:

1. Sploosh a dash of bitters on a sugar cube and drop into a chilled champagne flute.
2. Add 10ml mince pie cognac and then fill the glass with chilled champagne.

Serve and smile. What do you mean it’s just us?