Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Cranberry Concoction

Happy weekend everyone! I’m still working through the abundance of cranberries I picked up for Thanksgiving dessert. Thankfully these little berries are fairly shelf stable and keep well when in the fridge for a long period of time. I don’t want to let them go to waste so I wanted to feature them again this week. I found a bourbon smash recipe using cranberries as a muddled ingredient, as well as a festive looking garnish and decided to give it a whirl with the last little bits of the Rod Woodson bourbon, which was delicious, and is leading me to figure out how to get my hands on another bottle…

6 oz. spiced apple cider
5-6 fresh cranberries (plus more to garnish)
3 oz. bourbon
2-3 dashes angostura bitters
1 fresh orange wedge
1 orange peel, to garnish

In a cocktail shaker or a tall glass, muddle the fresh cranberries, bitters and orange wedge using a muddler. Add the spiced apple cider, bourbon and ice and stir until cold. Strain well into a whiskey glass with large ice cube or more ice. Garnish with orange peel and fresh cranberries 

I ended up being short on the apple cider by about an ounce, and still had some more leftover in the shaker. I definitely recommend using a double rocks glass for this, or a Collins glass perhaps.

Lighter on the cider aroma than I expected. Granted I’m short an ounce but didn’t think that would decrease it by all that much. I get light, but very distinct orange notes in there too, but as per usual, I’m wondering if the peel garnish is responsible or if the wedge I muddled is giving off the orange notes at work here.

This drink is festive, and delicious. It’s very cider forward, a little more than my liking actually. Don’t get me wrong, I do like apple cider, but when I’m using it for a cocktail, especially a whiskey based one, I wish it wasn’t as forward as it is. Apparently I was lucky that I didn’t have that extra ounce of cider to add. On the flip side, if you DONT like a stronger tasting cocktail the proportions at work here are probably right up your alley.

Now the bourbon isn’t completely lost. It’s intensity is definitely muted thanks to the (called for) 2-1 ratio of spirit to mixer. It’s boozy bite is reduced significantly, but the flavors of the whiskey itself are there underneath the cider. It’s squarely in the dangerously delicious category, since you can easily have a few of these and not think twice about the three ounces of whiskey used as the base.

The cranberries do get kind of lost here. I tossed in a couple extras and I don’t pick up on their flavor. I still have a bunch of cranberries left and I was thinking I might attempt to make some simple syrup with them to intensify their flavors a bit more and use them in place of just muddling them and straining as was the case here.

This was pretty good, if not basic. However there is some beauty in simplicity which is why I think this works here. Not only does it work, but I think the simplicity leads to some building opportunities. There’s a chance to intensify the cranberries, bring down the cider to bourbon ratio, or even heat this up and add some more spices like clove or cinnamon. One, if not all of those adjustments can really punch this up and bring it to another level.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)