‘Tis the season to rejoice with good company and a stiff drink! When planning a holiday party, creating the cocktail menu can be difficult. An open bar is costly and unoriginal, whereas having just one signature drink lacks diversity to suit your guests’ alcoholic desires.
The most effective solution is to create a small, cost-efficient drink menu with items that everyone can enjoy, whether their preferences are spicy, sweet, or a little bit of both. The menu should contain unique cocktails that will separate your drinks from the boring Irish coffees, eggnogs and spiked ciders of parties past.
Trina Sturm, owner of Trina’s Starlite Lounge in Somerville, Mass., and a front-runner on drinkboston.com’s Best Boston Bartenders list, has a solution to this drink dilemma. Sturm has created a menu of three holiday cocktails with distinct yet related tastes that are sure to please your guests without sticking to the ho-hum classics and throwing creativity out of your tinseled window.
Rum BBC
2 oz. Old Monk rum
1 oz. cinnamon syrup
3 oz. hot water
top with bar spoon of bourbon butter
The Adirondack
2 1/2 oz. butter-infused bourbon
1/2 oz. pure maple syrup
Santa’s Little Stinger
3 oz. candy cane-infused VS Cognac
serve with a mini candy cane
Each of these options toy with the season’s favorite flavors while forming a cohesive holiday-themed drink menu. The Rum BBC is spicy whereas the Adirondack is sweet, but both boast the smooth undertones of buttery bourbon. Santa’s Little Stinger is a happy balance of the Rum BBC and the Adirondack, with the cognac’s spicy peppermint and sweet smooth vanilla flavors complementing its woodiness.
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