Holiday spirits: Five fancy seasonal cocktails you can make at home
From Dirty Habit to Pebble Beach Resorts, H2Hotel’s Spoonbar and the Churchill, here’s the secret to their holiday sips
We asked mixologists from several local hotels and bars to share their recipes for special, festive cocktails for the holidays, so you can get stirring and mixing at home.
Pebble Beach Resorts’ bartenders served their new holiday cocktail, the Getting Figgy With It, which features mezcal and fig syrup.
Carlos Cruz, bar manager and co-owner of Churchill, a San Francisco cocktail bar, shares a classic egg nog recipe with a twist. It’s made with bourbon, allspice liqueur, egg, sugar, and cream, and he describes it as a “drink that tastes just like the holidays!”
This toasty Fireplace cocktail, made with whiskey and walnut liqueur, comes from Spoonbar, a Healdsburg restaurant on the ground floor of the H2Hotel that takes its name from “Spoonfall,” a nearby outdoor sculpture made of 3,500 espresso spoons. Just keep in mind that the cocktail tastes best after being aged in a barrel for two weeks.
The Naughty List cocktail, made with whiskey, cream, spiced syrup, and amaretto, comes from San Francisco’s Dirty Habit, which also serves seasonal bites and small batch whiskeys.
Then there’s the Aprés Hot Cocoa, which combines hot chocolate and whipped cream with whiskey and Chartreuse and is available this winter at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley.
Getting Figgy with It
Ingredients
1.5 oz. Amaras Cupreata Mezcal
1 oz. fig syrup
3 tablespoons whiskey barrel bitters
2 dashes orange bitters Regan’s
To serve, garnish with a flamed orange twist.
In a mixing glass, combine the mezcal, fig syrup, and both bitters. Stir in ice until chilled and diluted. In a craft rocks glass, strain over a large ice cube. Garnish with a twist of flamed orange.
Pebble Beach Resorts, 1700 17 Mile Drive, Pebble Beach; www.pebblebeach.com.
Egg Nog
Ingredients
1.5 ounces Kentucky Bourbon, Old Barton
St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram (.25 oz.)
1 complete egg
5 oz. brown sugar
1.5 oz. cream
To garnish, grate some nutmeg.
In a cocktail shaker, combine the bourbon, allspice dram, egg, sugar, and cream and shake vigorously without ice. Then add ice and shake until completely chilled. Pour into a glass with a fine strain. On top, sprinkle with grated nutmeg.
Churchill Cocktail Bar is located at 198 Church St. in San Francisco; churchillsf.com.
Fireplace
Ingredients
1 part Woodinville rye whiskey, 2 parts water
1 tsp Amaro
1 tablespoon walnut liqueur
Bitters made from oranges
Spray with absinthe
To garnish, use dehydrated orange or orange peel.
In a 2:1:1 ratio, combine the whiskey, amaro, and walnut liqueur. Age this mixture in a barrel for at least two weeks for the best results.
To make the cocktail, fill a rocks glass with one large ice cube, spray with absinthe, add a few dashes of orange bitters, and 2 ounces of the whiskey mixture. Stir gently. Garnish with orange peel or dehydrated orange.
Spoonbar is located at H2Hotel, 219 Healdsburg Ave. in Healdsburg; spoonbar.com.
Santa’s Naughty List
Ingredients
Savage and Cooke Bad Sweater Whiskey, 2 oz.
1 oz. cream
Spiced demerara syrup (spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, star anise, and cardamom) (.75 ounce)
Disaronno amaretto.75 oz.
Serve in a rocks glass or coupe with the whiskey, cream, demerara syrup, and amaretto.
Dirty Habit is located inside Hotel Zelos on 12 Fourth Street in San Francisco; zhotelssf.com/zelos/dine/dirty-habit.
Après Hot Cocoa
Ingredients
Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey, 1 1/2 oz.
Green Chartreuse, 1/2 ounce
chocolate chaud
Whipped vanilla cream
Prepare the hot chocolate first, then add the whiskey and Chartreuse. Finish with whipped cream.
Where to find it: Après Village, a winter pop-up at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley at 2050 University Ave. in East Palo Alto, is open until Jan. 28; bit.ly/ApresVillage2023.
