Winter Tale

Pre-mixed Winter Tale Cocktail

I’m going to label and decorate and gift these within the next couple of weeks. I wish I’d made more!  I don’t remember the size of these bottles but I think they hold 12 ounces.

I considered just mixing the vodka with the syrup and giving lemons on the side with a recipe so the lemon juice would be more fresh in the final cocktail that is shaken and strained and sipped.  Then I figured this would be drunk up rather quickly and the ease of just pouring, shaking, straining (or just pouring over ice and stirring), would be nicer for the gift recipients than giving them the additional task of juicing lemons.

I didn’t know what to do with the vodka once it was infused. I rummaged through our kitchen looking for ideas and inspiration.  We have a bunch of unused spices that we “inherited” from a friend who died a couple of years ago and I like to try them out in new things.  One of them is Penzey’s Mulling Spices.  We have lots of citrus in the fridge (limes, lemons, oranges, tangerines, clementines).  I smelled the mulling spices, the infused vodka, the clementines, and I was inspired.

Here’s the recipe for the batch that I made:

Cranberry cinnamon stick vodka:

• 1.75 L vodka
• 2 pints fresh cranberries
• 1 vanilla bean
• 6 cinnamon sticks

Mulling spice clementine syrup:

• 4 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 2 T mulling spices (I used Penzey’s)
• 2 clementines with leaves attached

Mixing:

• a lot of lemons
• 2 weeks of time

Infuse the vodka:

1. Crush the cranberries. I meticulously cut each of the cranberries in half and then used a potato masher to mash them.  I considered blitzing them in a food processor but thought that might make them too mushy.
2. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise
3. Pour the vodka into a large jar (I use a 3 L jar)
4. Add the crushed cranberries, vanilla bean, and cinnamon sticks
5. Shake or stir and store in a cool dark place.
6. After 1 day, remove the vanilla bean.
7. Shake or stir daily.
8. After 6 more days, remove the cinnamon sticks.
9. Shake or stir daily.
10. After 7 more days (or taste daily and stop when you like the taste), strain out the cranberries and anything left behind from the cinnamon sticks and vanilla.

Make the syrup (this will make a bit more syrup than you need for the batch):

1. Use a peeler to remove the peel in long strips from the clementine.
2. Tear the clementine leaves
3. Heat the sugar and water until it dissolves.
4. Remove from heat and add the mulling spices, clementine peel, and clementine leaves.
5. Cover and let it steep for approximately 12 hours.

Mix the cocktail:

1. Juice a lot of lemons if you’re going to make a batch – I probably juiced 15-25 lemons to make this batch

• 2 cranberry cinnamon stick vodka
• 3/4 mulling spice clementine syrup
• 3/4 lemon juice