Category: Drinks

This Spiced Sparkling Cider Cocktail is both sweet and sophisticated. It’s perfect for when you want something a little bit fancy but not straight up boozy. You’re gonna want to drink this the entire holiday season.

As I write this, we are on the eve of a general election here in the UK, and it’s really messing with my holiday spirit. Just when your days start feeling merry and bright, somebody does or says something ridiculous on the news, and you wonder if we’ll even survive to next year. The world feels totally out of control, and I don’t know if we’ll actually be okay.

Christmas and Yule and so many other winter solstice traditions all have themes of hope and renewal. I feel like we really need to tap into that right now. We’ve been wading through a dark time. It’s a natural and necessary cycle of death, but late December signifies the return of the light. It comes slowly, but every day from December 21st will start to be just a little bit longer than the day before. And then all of a sudden we’ll start to see crocuses and remember what color is. Life always come back. Let’s hold onto that feeling.

Or maybe we just need to chill out and drink cocktails until we forget for a minute that the world is falling apart around us. I don’t know.

If you are going to make yourself a cocktail, make this Spiced Sparkling Cider Cocktail. It’s absolutely delicious, guys. It’s sugar and spice and Christmas cheer and bubbles and fun. I’m into it.

A little vodka and a little non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider get mixed together with a homemade spiced simple syrup made with orange juice, sugar, and a mix of winter spices. We use ground spices because this is real life, and that’s what you probably have in your kitchen. I strained my syrup through a coffee filter to try to get rid of some of the bigger bits, but you’ll still have some ground spices in your syrup. Don’t sweat it. Just make sure you give everyone something to stir their drink with. A cinnamon stick is super cute. Go to an Asian market to get cheap whole spices. Save your money for gifts.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Brexit or impeachment or any of that. I do know that, barring some type of comic book-level catastrophe, the Earth will continue to journey around the sun, and the light will slowly but surely return to the Northern Hemisphere. In the meantime, I’ll be over here drinking a cocktail. You should join me. It’ll be awesome.

Don’t forget to tag me on Instagram if you make this cocktail. I can’t wait to see .