The turkey in the oven, the red cabbage seasoned, the nougat cut. The wine, who knows what they bring... and the cocktails? The cocktail bar also belongs to the Lord and deserves its space in the zambomba and espumillón celebration. Even if it's just to pass the family drink. It remains to dare, become home bartenders, and come out on top whenever possible.
Since we act as hosts -awareness of the virus seems to have diluted like a bad negroni and we deserve a Christmas party-, let us be clear that, as with the stew, with the mixtures, we need order and cleanliness. Also some basic household items: a double-cone jigger (60 ml/30 ml) -although we have all used a shot glass at some point-, a long spoon (bar spoon) to stir, at least one strainer, a juicer ( manual works), and a potato peeler or a sharp knife to cut thin slices of citrus peel.
Today we can even do without a mixing glass -for bad, grandmother's vase-, but not a cocktail shaker: a decent three-bodied one, never the cheapest one from the corner bazaar or the one that comes in the magician's apprentice kits. As for the glass, it is convenient to stretch because it is important: we take advantage of the set of wine glasses, but you must have a cocktail or Martini, and also short and wide Old Fashioned type glasses. Flee from post-war flute glasses as well as from the special programs of the autonomic ones.
Be careful, attend to the ice as it deserves, the key to your party is and will be the temperature. His thing is to empty at least one drawer of the freezer -we don't want shrimp-flavored balls- and fill it with gas station cargo. Cleaner Ice Hack: Cut off a corner of that bag, fill it with water, rinse, and store it. It doesn't hurt to show off with molded cubes or spheres for a specific drink, but we should not ration the bulk cold of the night with which to load our shaker and with which to fill our jugs and punch bowls.
Hand in hand with some trusted professionals, we propose the following cocktails, some in a family format to share more comfortably, according to the phases of the home celebration. With affordable ingredients, distillates, and liquors that we can find in any bar cabinet, and simple preparations that do not require higher education or laboratory machinery.
Sparkling pitcher, by Barreto Olimpic and Candela Bravo
Under the premise that bubbles -or champagne, rather- dress with everything, we bring this option with a basic but useful appearance to share without complicating it. A perfect cocktail also for the canapé moment, just as the Barreto trio from Barcelona (Antonio Naranjo, Edir Malpartida, and Adal Márquez) have conceived it to the point of making it one of their hallmarks: the jarred.
“This cocktail format has been denigrated a lot,” Antonio clarifies. They make their frothy pitcher something appetizing and fine: "We recover the sangrías of a lifetime but with quality," Adal explains to us. “When in Spain it is their flag, the Spanish Cobbler, the original Spanish cocktail. Let the sangria be something fun and with good products, a jug around which to gather with friends”.
Ingredients
pink frothy pitcher
- 1 tangerine and 12 red grapes
- 100ml simple syrup
- 100ml lemon juice
- 200ml vodka
- 400 ml of rosé wine
- 200 ml of champagne
- 15 mint leaves
white frothy pitcher
- 1 green apple and 12 white grapes
- 100ml simple syrup
- 100ml lemon juice
- 200ml vodka
- 400 ml of white wine (verdejo)
- 200 ml of champagne
- 15 mint leaves
Preparation
- Macerate the fruit with the sugar and the distillate from the chosen jug for 48 hours in the fridge.
- Pour into a jug with ice, add the rest of the ingredients -ending with the cava- and serve.
Christmas (Egg) Nog, from Bless Lively Lounge
We continue with the large-format cocktail, already more traditionally impossible, being also shot to replicate. The Libé Unique Cocktails team designs the menu for the Bless Madrid hotel bar to promote current hedonism but which is somewhat reminiscent of the luxury of classic hotels, and the most Yankee eggnog could not be missing. The bartender Miguel Ángel Jiménez, founder of Libé, tells it better: “The typical thing in American movies, which becomes thin with nonsense, is not very common at Christmas parties in Spain, but it works well because it is something creamy and with notes of raisins and spices. Also nuts if you use a Guatemalan or sweeter rum. It can be served both hot and cold.
Ingredients
For 1 liter (about 7-8 units in a 130 ml glass)
- 160ml egg yolk
- 260 ml of almond milk
- 160 ml of liquid cream
- 260 ml of rum
- 120 ml of Pedro Ximenez
- 85g brown sugar
Preparation
- Mix all the ingredients in the mixer for one minute at medium-high speed.
- Store refrigerated, for no more than three days.
- If you want to serve hot, heat in a saucepan over medium heat without boiling, decorate and that's it.
Cup: the cup that Bless uses is 130 ml. At home, a transparent cup for Irish Coffee or a short and wide glass would fit the theme.
Garnish ground cinnamon or nutmeg and, as an accompaniment, a gingerbread cookie, gingerbread, or fig bread.
Ingenue Punch by Punch Room
We reached the high point of the party: when we pulled the punch bowl. As your trousseau does not provide for so much memorable tableware, you will have to improvise with a giant salad bowl (or, for that matter, the fish tank). The sumptuous version can be found in the Punch Room, the space that the Edition hotels -Madrid and Barcelona- dedicate to this elixir of protocol cocktails. “Punch is the ideal format for sharing, therefore, it is perfect for these parties”, writes Simone Ruta from The Madrid Edition, where they explore its future possibilities with new ingredients and modern techniques. Popularized in 17th century England, after being born in India, punches were for three centuries the typical mixed drink of the colonies, always made up of distillate, citrus fruits, spices, water or tea, and sugar. “We propose our Ingenue Punch,
Ingredients
For 1 liter (about six drinks)
- 240ml dark rum
- 120ml blended whiskey (malt and rye-based)
- 30 ml of Pedro Ximenez
- 30 ml elderberry liqueur
- 150ml lemon juice
- 90ml orange juice
- 120 ml simple syrup (recipe above)
- 300 ml English Breakfast black tea (for the infusion time, follow the brand's instructions).
Preparation
- Mix all the ingredients in the punch bowl, or similar container, directly with ice (block or as large and frozen as possible) to begin the dilution.
- Serve in glasses with ice.
Garnish orange and lemon slices.
French 75 by The Dash
We get into festive flour without leaving the Madrid neighborhood of Olavide. Here is a personal weakness, just as this historic cocktail is executed by Rubén de Gracia in his Chamberilera cocktail bar The Dash. From the neighborhood, yes, but with class. More bubbles and chic finesse in a welcome drink that you can even knock your brother-in-law out with if you tell him about Prohibition and the First World War with which he is associated (it doesn't matter, he won't check the hoax you spew).
This spark of French sophistication that combines distillate plus champagne can become French 55 if you dust off the family bar cabinet to replace the gin with cognac -or in Airmail, with rum-, as Rubén recommends: "Once mixed, the cognac does not differ of a rum or a whiskey. For me it is a very elegant drink because it is very simple, essentially a Tom Collins with cava, and even so it has character, it is very balanced and you look like a king if you drink it at home”.
Ingredients
for a drink
- 60 ml gin/cognac (treat yourself to a VSOP, a blend of cognacs aged for at least four years)/brandy (Gran Solera)
- 30ml lemon juice
- 15 ml of simple syrup: equal parts of sugar and water, heat the water, add the sugar and stir until it is completely dissolved
- Cava or champagne top (almost better, please)
Preparation
- Shake everything except the cava, serve and finish off with it.
Glass: coupette /cocktail/flute (not my choice).
Decoration: twist -long and thin lemon strip, without the white and rolled part- of lemon.
Daiquiri Crocus, by Glass by Sips
No party is without a cocktail sour, and no cocktail is more festive than a daiquiri. Actually, it is the evolution of the short drink punch. It seems elementary, but be careful because it contains a complexity that exposes the errors and on top of that with the Crocus, we mess everything up a little more. The third hotel bar in the combo is the embassy of the successful Sips, which Marc Álvarez and Simone Caporale have taken from Barcelona to the Urban in Madrid. This daiquiri is a novelty and worth dessert. “We have the citric-acid base of the traditional daiquiri,” Marc explains, “and we add two typical Christmas ingredients in Catalonia, such as pineapple and saffron with syrup and triple sec. It is to bring that tropical and spicy mixture to the liquid world. And if you know how to make a stew, you know how to make syrup”.
Ingredients
for a drink
- 50 ml of Havana 3 rum
- 5ml triple sec
- 25ml freshly squeezed lime
- 25 ml of pineapple juice (preferably in a slow juicer)
- 10 ml of saffron syrup (let it boil for a while so that 0.2 grams of saffron in 250 g of well-dissolved sugar and 250 grams of water can take on flavor). Allow to cool, store in a bottle and refrigerate.
Preparation
- Put all the ingredients in the cocktail shaker, shake well, and double strain to avoid ice crystals.
Glass: coupette or cocktail.
Garnish orange zest.
Spritz, from Trafalgar Bar
Since we take care of everything, this light cocktail is to be enjoyed in the privacy of the kitchen while we mise-en-place the rest. It could be anything with sherry (a Bamboo, an Adonis, an aperitif with Dubonnet), but we opted for a dignified spritz that enhances the routine bitter-sweet-watery formula. Despite its summer connotation, bartender Kat Eyzaguirre makes this tune a success all year round at the Trafalgar bar (Madrid): “It's a good variant of the Aperol Spritz. Cynar is known only to aficionados but everyone loves its herbaceous bitter taste and here we kick it up a notch. In addition, the cordial balances it out and gives it a fruity and fresh touch”. The first excuse is to put bubbles in almost everything.
Ingredients
for a drink
- 35 ml of grapefruit and ginger cordial: vacuum pack the zest of 5 grapefruits with 500 g of sugar (also works with 5 oranges or lemons and half the sugar), let marinate, transfer to a pot with 750 ml of boiling water and 20 gr of citric acid (sold in cans, but it can be replaced by lemon squeezed at the moment), 7.5 gr of salt and 60 gr of ginger essence (peel, grate and squeeze by hand).
- 50ml Cynar
- 25 ml of cava (always brut)/champagne
Preparation
- Serve in a wine glass with an ice cube and mix (direct method).
Garnish: orange peel or slice.
