15 mins plus infusing
Not Too Tricky
serves 2
About the recipe
'Tis the season to be jolly, so celebrate in style with my take on a Cosmo. Traditionally you would use cranberry juice, but I’ve switched things up with fresh pomegranate juice, plus my spice-infused vodka makes for a very special cocktail. It’s simply Christmas in a glass.
Ingredients
CHRISTMAS-INFUSED VODKA
½ a fresh red chilli
1 lime
1 clementine
1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
3-4 cloves
a few pink peppercorns
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
700ml quality vodka
CHRISTMAS COSMOPOLITAN
½ a pomegranate
40ml Christmas-infused vodka or quality vodka
10ml triple sec
15ml lime juice, optional
optional: 1 orange, to serve
Top Tip
– Mix it up when it comes to your infused vodka by using different herbs and spices, such as ginger, star anise and bay.
– Add cranberries to your ice cube tray before freezing to make your festive tipple extra fancy. You could still use the traditional cranberry juice if you don't have any pomegranate.
Method
- Start by making the Christmas-infused vodka: deseed the chilli, then use a speed-peeler to cut three strips of peel each from the lime, clementine and lemon (9 pieces in total).
- Place it all in a large, dry non-stick frying pan on a medium heat, with the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns and rosemary, then toast for a couple of minutes, or until fragrant. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
- Once cool enough to handle, poke all of the aromatics into the bottle of vodka (you could use a chopstick to push them down the bottle neck) and leave to infuse for at least three days.
- To make a Christmas Cosmopolitan, fill a cocktail shaker or jug with ice. Squeeze in the pomegranate juice, through your fingers – you want about 25ml – then add the remaining ingredients (except the orange).
- Shake or stir well, strain into your favourite martini glass and garnish with a strip of orange peel, if you like.
Tags
