THANKSGIVING MENU SERIES: SPICY CRANBERRY MARGARITA

Tequila lovers, this one is for you. I will warn you that these are a little too easy to drink. ? My father in law, Bill, actually gave us the “Holiday Cranberry Margarita” recipe from last year, I just added in the spicy honey element to change it up. This is everything you want a holiday margarita to be! And the great thing about this recipe, is that it’s VERY easy to batch as well, making it even better. Again, just multiple the recipe X the number of people or margs you want to make. Make it that morning so it’s one less thing you have to do.

Note: If you want to kick the heat up a notch, muddle in some fresh jalapeños – but I personally enjoy the flavor of spicy or hot honey for this. Enjoy!

Ingredients

3 oz pure Cranberry Juice
2 oz Tequila
1 oz Lime Juice, freshly squeezed!
1 oz Cointreau or Triple Sec
.5 oz Spicy or Hot Honey
More honey-to-rim glass
Turbinado sugar, or whatever you have
Cranberries + Sprig of Fresh Rosemary for garnish

Method

Sugar the rim of the glass with spicy honey and turbinado sugar, and set aside
Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake shake shake!
Pour into a martini or cocktail glass, then garnish with cranberry skewers and rosemary

Ingredients

18 ounces 2.25 cups Pure Cranberry Juice (not cranberry cocktail)
12 ounces 1.5 cups Tequila
6 ounces Cointreau
6 ounces fresh lime juice
4 ounces Hot Honey Simple Syrup, recipe below
Hot honey + sugar for rim
Sugared cranberries for garnish, optional

Method

Make the hot honey simple syrup by combining 3/4 cup hot honey and 1/2 cup of water in a small pot, bring to a boil, and once the honey is dissolved take off of the heat. Don’t use it until it’s cooled, and this can be made ahead of time!
In a pitcher, combine cranberry juice, tequila, Cointreau, simple syrup, and lime juice
If serving immediately, add ice to the pitcher and stir well. If serving later, do not add ice, but rather cover with Sarah and store in the fridge. I like to shake up each cocktail personally, but this isn’t necessary
Pour into a glass rimmed with hot honey and sugar
Garnish with sugared cranberries and enjoy!

For a mocktail: replace the tequila & Cointreau with either a NA tequila, sparkling water, or even ginger beer!

Enjoy!

Cortney

Cortney LaCorte

Cortney LaCorte is the creator of CheeseGal, a food and entertaining blog born in her Nashville kitchen that celebrates cheese, charcuterie and joyful gatherings