Last week our house and our neighbours held out annual Holiday Neighbour Walkabout. If you haven’t heard Pina or I talk about it before, a group of houses on our street all get together and spend 45 minutes at each house and eat foods prepared by each home owner.
When the stop came to our house, I created a Holiday Cranberry Martini to wash down some of the treats. I had remembered reading or seeing this somewhere before, so I thought I would give it a try:
Holiday Cranberry Martini
- 3 cups cranberry juice
- 3 cups water
- Vodka
- Orange Juice
- 1 cup sugar
- whole cloves
- 2-4 cinnamon sticks
- 1 star anise pod
- red decorating sugar
The first part of this recipe can be done a day or more ahead of time and just stored in the fridge for when needed. Put the cranberry juice, water, sugar, cinnamon sticks, star anise and cloves in a pot and bring it to a boil. Stir it every so often to make sure all the sugar dissolves. Once boiling, lower the heat and just let it simmer for 5 minutes or so. Then, remove all the spices and let the “syrup” cool completely. This can then be placed in the fridge and set aside for whenever you desire the martini.
Ahead of time, to decorate the glasses and make them all festive, wet the rims of your martini glasses and dip the edges into the red decorating sugar. This type of sugar is popular for decorating cakes and cookies. Fresh cranberries can be placed in each glass or on skewers/stir sticks.
To make the actual martini, fill a shaker with some ice cubes and fill with the cranberry “syrup”, vodka and orange juice. For the amount of syrup you use, half the amount of both the orange juice and vodka should be used. Example: 1/2 cup of syrup, 1/4 cup of vodka, 1/4 cup of orange juice. Shake vigorously and strain into the decorated glasses.
