Yay, December! Lit up houses we go 20 minutes out of the way to ogle at (because we can only fit a wreath in our fifth floor walk-up). Fake frost in the Starbucks window (but who cares – it makes us feel like we’re in Stars Hollow). Belting carols in the shower (because it’s finally allowed). And: all the holiday parties.
We look forward to the holiday parties all year long, and so we got together with our reveling friends at New York Magazine and Grub Street (at, yes, a holiday party) to put together this celebratory Holiday Cocktail Party kit.
In it are five boozy basics that will get any holiday party buzzing:
1. A limited edition bottle of smoky, leathery Van Brunt Stillhouse Rye Whiskey. This beautiful classic rye is made from a lot of rye grain and a little malted barley, so it's got plenty of black pepper bite and a rich body.
2. A crisp and smooth Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka with endless cocktail mixing possibilities. This isn't flavored vodka, but it is vodka with a surprising amount of flavor! It's clean and just barely sweet, with an almost creamy texture that comes from using potatoes, rather than grain, as the base.
3. Earthy and sweet Urban Moonshine Spray Maple Bitters. With just a few spritzes they refresh – waking up the palate with a gust of earthy herbal flavors like dandelion and burdock roots, orange peel and fennel balanced by woodsy maple syrup.
4. The best darn Small-Batch Tonic Syrup we’ve ever had (hellooooo G&Ts!). The Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. describes their syrup as "essentially a quinine concentrate," but it's the hint of lemongrass and orange peel that give this just enough complexity to hold up to the rich botanicals in our favorite gins.
5. A beautiful jar of Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. Cocktail Cherries so bright red and juicy, we think they could light Santa’s sleigh.
All that’s left to do is plug in the twinkly lights and turn the radio to the Michael Bublé Everything channel.
Cheers to that!