A holiday party needs more than cranberry sauce to be succesful, cocktails to greet your guests should be part of the picture.
Bogged down with too many cranberries, don't let a good thing go to waste.
Give a try to Boston Bog cocktail recipe from The American Cocktail "50 Recipes That Celebrate the Craft of Mixing Drinks From Coast to Coast" (Chronicle Books, Fall 2011) gathered by Karen Foley and the Imbibe Magazine team.
Boston Bog
Of all the indigenous flora of North America, only three native fruits are commercially grown, and one is the cranberry. Though the berries are cultivated in several regions around the United States and Canada, nowhere are they more intertwined with a state’s economic, agricultural, and social history than in Massachusetts, where Native Americans first taught Colonial Americans what to do with the nutritious berries and where cranberry cultivation was born. Fourteen-thousand acres of commercial cranberry bogs can now be found on the sandy shores of Cape Cod, where some of the vines are more than 150 years old. To capture the history and flavor of this special berry, Boston bartender Misty Kalkofen mixes fresh cranberries with Jamaican rum, that other colonial American staple. For spicy depth, she adds housemade ginger syrup, balanced by a kiss of sweet apricot liqueur.
Serves 1
6 fresh cranberries or 1/2 ounce cranberry juice
1 1/2 ounces Appleton Estate Reserve Jamaican rum
1/2 ounce Rothman & Winter apricot liqueur
1/2 ounce ginger syrup (recipe follows)
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
Ice cubes
Tools: muddler, cocktail shaker, fine-mesh strainer
Glass: cocktail
Garnish: 1-inch-wide by 2-inch-long piece of orange peel
If using fresh cranberries, muddle them in a cocktail shaker. Add the rum, apricot liqueur, ginger syrup, and lemon juice (and the cranberry juice, if using) and shake well with ice. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange peel, twisting it over the drink to release the oils.
Ginger Syrup
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
1 cup water
1 cup demerara sugar
1 cup diced fresh ginger, skin on
Combine the water and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer, stirring slowly until the sugar is dissolved, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Purée the ginger with the sugar mixture and strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean glass container. Cover and refrigerate for up to two weeks.
Misty Kalkofen, Drink, Boston, Massachusetts
(* Recipe from The American Cocktail "50 Recipes That Celebrate the Craft of Mixing Drinks From Coast to Coast" -Chronicle Books, Fall 2011- Photo by Sheri Giblin– all rights reserved)