Preparing for your New Years celebration? Creative cocktails are a must. Festive in color and taste, this Pomegranate Ginger Champagne from iVillage gets a little extra kick from candied ginger.

Nothing says excitement like drinking rum and soda out of a paper cup while blogging.

On that note, the holiday season is a-coming (actually, it’s here!), and the fun of many of our parties is dependent on the quality of the the cocktails therein. ‘Tis the season to celebrate…and drink.

Our friends at TheBar.com are mindful of this quintessential truth, and have supplied some great cocktails to get us through this season of endless jolly.

CINNAMON TOAST

Ingredients

• 1.25 oz. Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum

• 6 oz. hot apple cider

• 1 tbsp. sugar

• 1 tbsp. cinnamon

……………………………………………………………………..

Preparation

• Add apple hot cider and Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum in glass rimmed with sugar and cinnamon

***

TANQUERAY ROUGE

Ingredients

• 1.25 oz. Tanqueray London Dry Gin

• 1 oz. simple syrup

• .75 oz. fresh lemon juice

• 1 oz. pomegranate juice

• 1 spiral lemon peel

……………………………………………………………………..

Preparation

• Add Tanqueray London Dry Gin, simple syrup, fresh lemon juice, and pomegranate juice

• Shake with ice and strain into martini glass

• Garnish with lemon peel spiral

(Recipes and images courtesy of our friends at Gothamist)

There are many things that get us in the holiday spirit. But none of them work as nicely as stiff cocktail. Being that Thanksgiving is the official kick-start to festive season, it seems only right to welcome it with a beverage that will put some color in our cheeks and some jolly in our step.

Cranberry Martinis
1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) vodka
1/4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) dry vermouth
1/2 cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) cranberry juice
8 cranberries, frozen
4 lemon zest twists

Wet 4 martini glasses and place them in the freezer to chill for at least 30 minutes. Fill a cocktail shaker half full with ice. Add the vodka, vermouth and cranberry juice. Cover with the lid and shake vigorously for about 10 seconds. Strain into the chilled glasses. Garnish each glass with 2 cranberries and a lemon twist.

Turkey Kiss
½ cup spiced rum
3/4 cup cranberry juice cocktail
¼ cup triple sec
Maraschino cherries

Shake rum, cranberry juice and triple sec with crushed ice, strain into martini glasses, top with cherries.

There is no fighting the holidays from here on out. Our reality will be wrapping paper cuts, centerpiece arrangements and elastic-waist pants. Might as well embrace it and enjoy it, one sip at a time.

(Once again, thanks to our friends at The Bachelor Guy!)

Van Gogh Vodkas have taken some of their 19 flavors and stirred up a witch’s brew of drinks guaranteed to grab some eyeballs and add to the atmosphere at your monster mash this (or next), weekend.

Eyeball Martini
3 oz Van Gogh Vodka or Van Gogh Gin
Hint of dry vermouth
Olive stuffed radish

Pour ingredients into cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously for five seconds and strain into martini glass. Garnish with an olive stuffed radish that has been scored to create the “veins” of an eyeball. (See pic)

Spider Cider
2 oz Van Gogh Wild Appel Vodka
2 oz Sour apple schnapps
Cranberry juice
Apple juice
Gummy spiders

Freeze gummy spiders in ice cubes ahead of time. Fill a pint glass with the spider packed ice. Add Wild Appel vodka and schnapps. Top off with half cranberry juice, half apple juice.

Booberry Martini
2 oz Van Gogh Acai-Blueberry™ Vodka
1 oz White chocolate liqueur
1 oz Amaretto
Skewered blueberries
Marshmallow ghosts

Pour first three ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously for five seconds, then strain mixture into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with skewered blueberries and/or marshmallow ghost.

Are you planning a Halloween party? Well, excellent cocktails are a great way to start!

(Courtesy of our friends at TheBachelorGuy.com and TheBar.com)

GHOST [Pic, on left]
1 1/4 oz Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka
1/4 oz Godiva Chocolate Liqueur
1/4 oz half-and-half
1/4 oz simple syrup
1/4 oz shavings of white chocolate

Fill shaker with ice. Add Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka, Godiva Chocolate Liqueur, half-and-half, and simple syrup. Shake. Strain into chilled martini glass rimmed with white chocolate. Garnish with white chocolate shavings.

SCREAM SODA [Pic, in middle]
1 1/4 oz Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum
5 oz lemon-lime soda
1 slice lemon
1 slice lime

Add Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum and lemon-lime soda in tall ice-filled glass. Garnish with lemon and lime slices.

ROYAL CIDER GROG [Pic, on right]
Makes 8 servings
1 1/2 cups Crown Royal
8 cups apple cider
8 cinnamon sticks

Add Crown Royal and apple cider in large pot and heat until warm. Pour into 8 heat-proof mugs and garnish each mug with cinnamon stick.

If you are looking for a fashionable cocktail, Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur, the Official Liqueur of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, has been serving up these fashion favorites at shows in New York, LA and Chicago.

The best thing about Chambord? It is made from all-natural berries paired with honey and herbs, not to mention the bottle, which will look hot atop your bar.

Chambord French Martini        
1½ parts vodka                                
½ part Chambord                        
½ part pineapple juice                        

Shake ingredients with ice                
and strain into a martini glass.          

Chambord Walk  
1 part vodka
½ part Chambord
Club soda

Shake first two ingredients with ice and strain into ice-filled rocks glass. Top with a splash of soda and garnish with a lemon wedge

French Manhattan
2 parts Woodford Reserve bourbon
1 part Chambord
Dash of bitters

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a martini glass.  Garnish with a cherry.

Friends, I ask: What makes a wretchedly twisted ankle bundles more fun?

Answer: A rainy, humid day, of course.

Happy day all!

PS: Think those Vibe Duos below are exciting? Wait till you see what’s coming tonight!

Seek, and ye shall find.

Last week, I embarked on a pilgrimage for the best of the lychee-infused products of the globe. Tirelessly, I tasted delicacies of all varieties.

I am happy to announce, my search is over.

Produced and bottled in Cognac, France, Lichido Liqueur is a combination of carefully aged cognac, premium vodka and the essences of lychees, guavas, and white peaches.

Let me count all the things I love about Lichido. It is a lychee martini in a bottle (not quite, but contains a lot of what makes lychee martinis special). It - despite what you may expect - is a very eye-pleasing shade of pink. It is sweet, yes - but not in a candy sweet way - but rather a refreshing fruity dessert-beverage way that will make both your nose and taste buds very happy. I drank it straight up that first night, and I immediately tasted both the peach and the lychee. These tropical tastes when accompanied by the cognac’s complex flavors and followed by vodka’s unmistakable warming sensation is quite pleasing indeed.

Check out just a few yummy cocktails you can make out of Lichido (if you don’t finish the bottle off on the rocks, that is!):

Lichitini

1 1/2 oz. Lichido Liqueur

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

One pitted Lychee

Razzle Dazzle

1 1/2 oz Vanilla Vodka

1 1/2 oz Lichido Liqueur

3 oz Raspberry Puree
Splash of Fresh Lime Juice

I love Lichido…I love it so much that I may not need to visit my favorite happy-hour lychee martini spot for a few weeks. (Why go to the mountain when it comes to you?) And one of you will feel a little of my happiness, because we are giving one bottle away!

Here’s a fun game for you - make up your own planned cocktail for your Lichido (and for extra points, name it!). Can be a spin on an old favorite or something new and exotic. The one that sounds the yummiest wins the bottle! Deadline to enter is Saturday, September 8th.

As much as we love the extended fun of a holiday weekend, Labor Day means a chill is soon-to-be in the air. Just because the temperatures are beginning to dip is no reason to put away the cocktail shaker and resign yourself to bulky sweaters and hot chocolate though!

I for one am not ready to stop enjoying my summer tropics behavior, and suggest that you add some cocktail magic into your traditional BBQs so you can maintain your own as well. Whip up a last blast of summer with a patriotic array of the season’s hottest cocktail – the caipirinha. Entertain by serving red, white and blue versions - the first combines Agua Luca Brazilian Cane Rum Cachaça with PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur, the second is served classic-style, and the third gets its vibrant blue hue from a dash of Hpnotiq Liqueur. All you have to do is add limes and sugar and muddle, shake and serve!

The PAMA Luca Caipirinha

1 ½ oz. Agua Luca

1 ½ oz. PAMA

¾ oz. Simple Syrup

½ lime, quartered

Muddle Limes and simple syrup thoroughly. Add Agua Luca, PAMA and ice. Shake vigorously and pour into a rocks glass. Garnish with lime wedge.

The Agua Luca Caipirinha

3 oz. Água Luca

2 spoons of sugar

½ oz. lemon juice

1 lime cut into quarters

Muddle fresh limes in a rocks glass. Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Pour into rocks glass.

Rio Mojito

1 part Agua Luca

1 part Hpnotiq

1 oz. Simple Syrup

1 lime wedge

12 mint leaves

Soda water

Muddle mint leaves, lime wedge and simple syrup. Add ice, Agua Luca and Hpnotiq. Shake thoroughly and pour into a Collins or rocks glass. Top with soda water. Garnish with lime wedge or mint sprig.