Only Three Days until New Year’s Eve! Are you ready? If you’re looking for inspiration for your own New Year’s Party, I’ve got a festive idea for you: Make it a night of Champagne cocktails! This menu of cocktails gives you lots of different things to try but doesn’t require a lot of ingredients. Only nine ingredients, in fact. And those will make you SIX different kinds of Champagne cocktails. Cool, right?

A note about the Champagne. I know I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. When making Champagne cocktails you should not use real Champagne (unless you’re really really rich, in which case, can I come to your party?). You can totally go ahead and use a nice Prosecco (the Italian version of Champagne), Cava (the Spanish version of Champagne) or a nice dry (look for the word Brut on the bottle) bottle of sparkling wine from California or Australia. The best thing you can do is to go now and pick up a bottle of what you’re thinking of using. Chill it down really well. And then this evening open it up and sample it. If you like drinking it on its own, you will like it in the cocktails.

So far I’ve brought you Champagne Cocktail recipes for Paint Your Mimosa Red and for The Pink French 75. Coming one-a-day between now and New Year’s Eve I’ll bring you The Black Velvet, The Barbowhatever and Sparkling Sangria. Make sure that you LIKE Cook the Story on Facebook and that you subscribe to Cook the Story by email so that you don’t miss any of these delicious and easy Champagne Cocktail recipes.

Get the list of ingredients that you’ll need to make the cocktails by clicking here.

Today’s Champagne Cocktail recipe is for The Poinsettia.

So elegant, so pretty. Soooo easy.

The Poinsettia

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Total time

5 mins

 

To make this drink you need to muddle up cranberries that were frozen but have been defrosted. Why is freezing imporant? It seems to make it easier to get out the juice. So freeze the cranberries (just stick the whole bag in the freezer) and then take out some to defrost in a bowl of warm water. Once they’re defrosted, drain them and use them within 1 day. Note that the recipe also uses cranberries that are STILL frozen as a garnish and to keep the drink cold. So make sure you keep some cranberries in the freezer for their chill factor.

Author: Christine

Recipe type: Beverage

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 10 frozen cranberries that have been defrosted
• 1 ounce of orange liqueur (like Cointreau, Grand Marnier or Triple Sec)
• ½ cup of dry sparkling wine
• 6 or 7 frozen cranberries

Instructions

1. In a cocktail shaker combine the defrosted cranberries and orange liqueur. Muddle them to mush up the cranberries a bit. (Note that you can do this with a mortar and pestle if you don’t have a cocktail shaker and muddler).
2. Strain the orange liqueur into a martini glass (use a fine mesh sieve if you don’t want tiny cranberry seeds in your drink. If you don’t mind the seeds, then use whatever strainer you’d like).
3. Top the glass up with the sparkling wine. Drop in the frozen cranberries (these look pretty and help keep the drink nice and cold). Drink!

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Now tell me, do you prefer your cocktails sweet and fruity or dry, dry, dry?

Some more tasty inspirations for you:

A Quick Tzatziki Sauce and Chicken Souvlaki TACOSA Drink Recipe for Brunch: Mango Lime BellinisMake Ahead Recipe: Granola, Yogurt & Walnut CupsOne Of My Fave Bacon Recipes for Brunch Week