This winter cocktail is something that came to me while I was making some homemade apple juice glögi (mulled wine we drink in nordic countries). I love the flavour of spiced apple juice where it infuses depth from cloves, cinnamon and ginger and though it would make a great cocktail once chilled. The drink looks beautiful and has a lovely deep but refreshing flavour to it so it makes a lovely aperitivo for Christmas time.

Apple Winter Cocktail 

• about 2 cups Good quality apple juice
• about 1 cup Soda ( apple flavoured preferably)
• splash of gin or alcohol of choice
• Christmas spices: Cinnamon stick, cloves, dried ginger, clementine slices
• 1-2 egg whites (optional)
• handful of ice
• Garnish: Dried clementine slices, thyme, ice

Place 2 cups of apple juice into a pot over medium high heat and add all the Christmas spices into it. Let it gently simmer for around 15 minutes and remove from heat. Let it cool down for an hour or so (so the flavours infuse) and then remove the spices through a sieve. Once cooled place into a Maison jar, refrigerate and use this later for the cocktails.

Dress the glasses with a sugar edge: Wipe some honey around each glass rim with the edge of your fingers. Place some brown sugar on a plate and dip the honey rim into it to get a lovely sugar coating on the edges.

To make the drink: place some ice into a cocktail shaker (or a Maison jar) along with the egg white, gin and a splash of spiced apple juice. Give it a good shake and pour the drink into a glass or two. My glasses are rather small so it made a few drinks. Add some ice and top of the drinks with some apple flavoured soda. Garnish with a dried clementine slice and a twig of thyme.

I have a feeling that instead of soda, some champagne/ prosecco could work nicely too, if you want to try that out. Repeat the process for more cocktails. I didn’t measure the amounts when making these, but you can add more apple juice or soda depending on what you prefer. I like to add a bit of apple juice and more soda so the ratio is more fizzy in the end. I only needed 1 egg white for 3 drinks, that created a little bit of froth. If you have tall glasses, I would suggest to use 1 egg white per serving. The egg white can also be left out, the cocktail is just as great without it.