Christmas cocktail garnish ideas

Christmas drinks have a colour problem. Most holiday cocktails are brown, cream or clear — an old fashioned, an eggnog, a French 75 — and none of them look like the season on their own. The garnish is doing all the visual work, and at a party where you're making thirty drinks, it needs to take about five seconds.

Here's what actually works in December.

Start with rosemary

If you do one thing, do this. A short sprig of rosemary in a drink looks like a miniature pine branch, smells like Christmas, and costs almost nothing. It works in gin drinks, whiskey drinks, spritzes and anything sparkling.

Slap the sprig against your palm before you put it in — it wakes up the oils, the same way you'd treat mint. Put it where the drinker's nose will be, along the rim or standing up out of the glass, not lying flat on the surface where nobody will smell it.

For a slightly theatrical version that's genuinely easy: hold a lit match under the sprig for a second until it smokes, then drop it in. The smell is extraordinary and it takes no skill.

Cranberries do the ornament work

Fresh cranberries are the most useful December garnish because they float, they hold their shape for hours, and they're the exact right red. Three on a pick across the top of a coupe is the classic look. Dropped loose into a tall drink with rosemary, they look like berries on a branch.

Sugared cranberries take ten minutes and look like they took an hour: roll fresh cranberries in simple syrup, then in granulated sugar, and let them dry on a rack for an hour. They keep for a couple of days and they're the garnish people photograph.

They're tart enough that most people won't eat them plain, which is fine — this one is for looks and it's honest about it.

Citrus, but make it seasonal

Orange is the December citrus. It belongs on every whiskey drink you'll pour this month, and a wide orange twist expressed over an old fashioned is the single best-value garnish in the entire holiday repertoire. If you want the technique, it's in how to garnish an old fashioned.

Two seasonal upgrades: stud an orange wheel with three or four whole cloves for a mulled look, or use a dehydrated orange wheel, which you can buy or make by baking thin slices at 200°F for about three hours. Dried wheels last for weeks in a jar, float beautifully and are the thing to prep in advance if you're hosting more than once.

Cinnamon sticks work the same way — more aroma than flavour, and they turn a glass of anything brown into a holiday drink.

The sweet ones

A candy cane hooked over the rim of a white russian or a peppermint martini is not subtle, and at a Christmas party that's the correct choice. Crushed candy cane on a rim, stuck down with a smear of chocolate syrup or corn syrup, does the same job with more grip.

Other sweet garnishes that hold up: a gingerbread cookie on the rim (cut a small slit so it sits), a cinnamon-sugar rim on anything apple or pear, and a skewer of marshmallows on a hot chocolate cocktail.

Keep these for dessert drinks. A candy cane in a negroni helps nobody.

What to do when you're pouring thirty drinks

The realistic constraint at a holiday party is that you can't garnish each drink individually. Two approaches work.

Garnish in advance. Load picks with cranberries an hour before and lay them on a tray. Cut twists and keep them under a damp paper towel. Trim rosemary sprigs to length. When you pour, the garnish is a single motion.

Or let people do it themselves. Set out small bowls — cranberries, olives, twists, rosemary, cinnamon sticks — with a jar of picks beside them. A garnish station makes a self-serve bar feel like a real one, and people enjoy it. More on building the bowls in the cocktail garnish guide.

The picks

A pick is doing two jobs on a Christmas drink: holding the cranberries or the olives, and reading as part of the table. Seasonal designs cost the same as plain ones and they're what makes a tray of drinks look like it belongs to the same party as the food.

Christmas tree picks and snowflake picks are the two we reorder most in December. Candy cane and gingerbread suit dessert drinks and cookie tables. The Holiday Host Kit is all four in one box at about 15% under buying them separately, which is the easier answer if you're hosting more than once this month.

For the drinks that aren't seasonal — the martinis and old fashioneds people will still order — olive picks and orange picks keep the bar working without a theme.

Five combinations that work

Rosemary and cranberry on anything gin. Orange twist and a cinnamon stick on anything whiskey. Three sugared cranberries on a pick across a coupe of something sparkling. A dehydrated orange wheel on a spritz. Crushed candy cane rim on anything chocolate or peppermint.

That's five looks covering every drink you're likely to pour between now and New Year's, and none of them takes longer than about fifteen seconds.

Keep reading: the cocktail garnish guide, Christmas appetizer ideas, and New Year's Eve party ideas. Or browse the Christmas picks collection.