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overhead shot of spiced cranberry negroni cocktail with holiday baubles
A Well Crafted Pantry

Spiced Cranberry Negroni Holiday Cocktail

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Sometimes that eggnog and hot buttered rum just doesn’t hit the spot. When you want to serve a cocktail that feels like the holidays, but isn’t one of the classics you always see, try this spiced cranberry negroni for Holiday a twist on an Italian classic… and something your guests probably haven’t tried recently. The flavors of a classic cranberry sauce spiced with orange zest and cinnamon is paired with the bitter notes of clove, cinnamon, and citrus of campari, the freshness of gin, and depth of sweet vermouth to create a truly interesting holiday sipper.

Holiday cocktail in christmas bauble with pink and red decor

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I know that the bitter notes of campari can be difficult for some, but hear me out on this drink. While a traditional negroni has either devoted followers or haters, this twist on the original offers a more balanced approach to appeal to the holiday guest. It may even be a way to convert some people over to join you for some amazing aperol spritz and negronis next summer when you host your next cocktail party.

Spiced Cranberry Syrup

Before you can make this cocktail you have to first make the spiced cranberry syrup. The best part of this recipe, is you have some tasty spiced cranberry sauce in the end as well!

Makes approximately 1 cup of syrup

  • 1 Bag of Fresh Cranberries rinsed and de-stemmed (16 oz) – you can substitute frozen, just decrease the water by 1/4 cup
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 zest of orange

Directions: Put all ingredients in a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring so that sugar does not burn, until sugar is fully dissolved and berries have cooked and are bursting. Smash the berries with a spoon and continue to cook until liquid has reduced some and will coat the spoon slightly. This takes around 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let cool. Separate the liquid from the berries. Keep the cranberry sauce to use for a holiday appetizer. Reserve the liquid to use in the Negroni cocktail or other holiday drinks!

Cocktail in glass with holiday baubles

A Holiday Twist on the Negroni: Spiced Cranberry Negroni Cocktail

Makes 1 cocktail (scroll below for a batch recipe)

  • 1 oz gin
  • 1 oz campari
  • 1 oz sweet vermouth
  • 1 oz cranberry juice
  • 1 oz spiced cranberry syrup

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker* over ice and shake. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass or over a large cube of ice* in a rocks glass—your choice!

Batch Holiday Cocktail Recipe: Spiced Cranberry Negroni Cocktail

Makes 6 cocktails

  • 6 oz gin
  • 6 oz campari
  • 6 oz sweet vermouth
  • 6 oz cranberry juice
  • 6 oz spiced cranberry syrup
  • 3 oz water

Mix all ingredients together in a pitcher and chill in fridge. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass or over a large cube of ice in a rocks glass—your choice!

TIP: I’ll be pouring these into ornaments and chilling in fridge. Guests can then pour the chilled drink directly from their ornament and into their glass! I use the clear ornaments* that can be cleaned out with soap and water. I remove the metal insert and use plastic wrap to seal the bauble and cover with the metal cap. However, I’m sure that some companies are making these baubles with caps on them just for this use now-a-days, I just haven’t used them before!

Holiday cocktail overhead shot with pink and red decor

This year, instead of having the boring old-standbys for your holiday party, spice things up with this Spiced Cranberry Negroni Cocktail. Suddenly your party will be more interesting and intellectual. Your guests will agree that you are the absolute best and no one else will have a holiday party like yours. I am sure of it. 😉

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A Well Crafted Party

Holiday Crafting: Friendship Bracelet Wine Glass Tags

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In the good year 2023, the year of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and The Barbie Movie, I say… lean in to the fun, the sparkle, the pink, and the friendship bracelets. Don’t just stop at the viral friendship bracelet Christmas tree garland (genius I say) but go ahead and keep on stringing the nostalgia to add fun sayings to other holiday essentials. Namely, the stemware.

This post contains affiliate links, marked with an asterisk (*). Affiliate links help this blogger earn money with purchases made without any added cost to those who purchase. Thank you for supporting my blog!

To say that this is a tutorial would be a stretch of the word to be sure. I simply found a friendship bracelet kit and used my stemware to estimate the sizing for each individual piece. I’ll give my best tips and links below, but this craft can be done with the simple kits found at your local craft store or more elaborate beads. You can use charms or words to make your bracelets unique. But, the key to this craft comes down to using stretchy string, tying a strong knot, and keeping each piece unique enough that it can identify a glass.

Wine Tag Friendship Bracelet Sizing

For my upcoming party I have two types of glasses that I want to help guests keep straight. One is a stemless champagne flute and the other a stemmed coupe glass. This required me to make two slightly different sized bracelets. I made a slightly larger bracelet (around 2.25 inches around) for the stemless glass so that it could go down far enough to not impede drinking but far enough up to not be annoying to the glass holder. The stemware had to be big enough to stretch over the bottom of the glass, but not large enough to get snagged or fall off. They ended up being more like 1.50 inches around.

TIP: When cutting your string go ahead and cut more than you need and measure to the glass often. It will make it easier to hold and to knot. You can then cut off the excess string.

Holiday Wine Tag Sayings

This was the most fun! Since these are much smaller than traditional friendship bracelets I had to stick with one holiday-centric word for each tag. Guests will be able to remember the word and keep track of their glass.

Suggested Holiday Tags: (This is not an exhaustive list– there are SO many options!)

  • Holly
  • Jolly
  • Santa
  • Elf
  • Joy
  • Merry
  • Bright
  • HoHoHo
  • Christmas
  • Noel
  • Star
  • Gift
  • Snow
  • Carol
  • Cheer
  • Bells

Holiday Friendship Bracelet Wine Tag Resources

I grabbed my beads on a holiday clearance rack while out shopping, but I’ve shared some resources below. I stuck to red and white for my colorscheme, because I want to use them throughout the years and tend to pull these two colors in most of my Christmas themes. However, you can mix it up to match your own holiday decor!

Dare I say that this would make for a fun gift as well? Or an added pizzazz to a cute gift of thrifted stemware? I’d find it charming!

May your drinks stay with their intended this holiday season and may this season of friendship bracelets, sparkling outfits, and powerful women live well into the new year!

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Christmas

Pear Themed Holiday Gift Ideas + Free Printables

2 Comments Christmas

Are you like me and are still finishing up some holiday shopping for neighbors, employees, clients, or business partners? While some are already finished for the holiday season… I am not! However, I am just a little bit closer after creating these fun pear themed holiday gifts for my husband’s team at work.

Holiday gift idea for employees free printable tags

We needed several holiday gifts that were fairly affordable and ran across these beautiful boxes of Harry and David pears from Trader Joe’s.The addition of some cute printable gift tags and these were personalized and made for a great employee gift.

You could absolutely do something similar with a gift box, tissue paper, and beautiful pears from your grocery store if your Trader Joe’s doesn’t have these in stock or you are not near a Trader Joe’s store.

I had made these with no intention of sharing on the blog simply because life has been busy and I was working at 10 PM getting these projects done. Not the best lighting for photos! However, after posting photos in a Facebook group several of the wonderful members of the group requested tags.

I created tags that will work for employees, neighbors, clients, teachers, and more. All are free for personal use. However, if you’d like to help my blog, please share this post by pinning it on Pinterest or sharing on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Instructions:

  • Download the design of your choice by clicking on the link below and saving the file to your computer. The 5 inch tags are the size that are pictured. I did make smaller tags as well so you could get more tags per page if needed.
  • For Tags: Print on 8.5X11 cardstock in full color. Cut out along black lines. Punch a hole in the corner and attach to your gift with ribbon or string.
  • For Labels: Print on 8.5X11 page-sized label paper in full color. Cut along black lines. Adhere to your package.

Pear Themed Gift Ideas Free Printables

I hope that these help make someone’s holiday just a little more pear-fect! 😉 Happy holidays to all! And, one last request to please share this post by pinning it on Pinterest or sharing on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. It really helps a gal out!

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