We all enjoy a little tipple over the festive season. There’s something about the warm feeling of a good pint of ale or a soothing gin and tonic that goes perfectly with chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But we’d argue the most festive beverage of them all is the cocktail. What says Christmas more than a mixed drink with all the trimmings?

With that in mind, we’ve put together a few cocktail recipes that should keep you in high festive spirits this December.

Mulled wine

We wondered if this one could really be classed as a cocktail but the more that we thought about it, of course it is. And what’s more Christmassy than mulled wine anyway?

To make the perfect mulled wine, take a bottle of good, rich red wine and put it in a saucepan with a large cinnamon stick, a couple of star anise, four cloves, some lemon zest and around 4 teaspoons of sugar. Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes then remove from the heat to allow the ingredients to infuse for about half an hour. The result? The perfect classic mulled wine!

The snowball

Statistically, we’re unlikely to get a white Christmas this year. Indeed, we’re unlikely to get a white Christmas any year. But if you want a little sprinkling of snow guaranteed, the snowball could be the retro cocktail of your Christmas dreams.

It’s an exceptionally simple drink to put together. Fill a glass with ice and add around 15 ml of lime juice. Then pour around 50 ml of advocaat and 50 ml of lemonade over the ice, stirring gently until the ingredients really get to know each other. Garnish it with a cherry and sprinkle some icing sugar on top for a final effect and there you go!

Chocolate eggnog

While eggnog isn’t quite as iconic over here as it is in the US, eggnog is an incredibly sweet and quite filling little tipple that is even tastier when chocolate is added into the mix. You could even cut out the alcohol here and leave this as a Christmas drink for the whole family!

Take 4 egg yolks and beat them together with 150g of sugar until you’re left with a thick mixture. Take around 500 ml of whole milk and grate some nutmeg into it and heat it in a pan until simmering. Next, melt about 100g of chocolate in another pan and pour the warm milk into it until it’s all blended. Now, start pouring the thick egg mixture into the chocolate milk while whisking and keep at it slowly until it’s all incorporated. Finally, add 300 ml of double cream and as much whisky as you want until you’re left with something truly spectacular.

Of course, whichever of these incredibly moreish cocktails you choose to experiment with, there are two golden rules to apply: –

1. Always use filtered water to make your ice, as the imperfections found in your tap water will always end up spoiling a perfect cocktail if it’s not been properly filtered.
2. Try to limit your consumption as much as you can. Everybody feels great after a couple of these cocktails but if you start pushing into four or five, you’re going to really feel it the next morning. And you don’t want to risk being hungover for Christmas, right?