Hard Cider Cocktails for Winter

All photos by Danielle Macdonald.  There’s something about apples that gets everyone very excited during the winter season - apple pie, apple sauce and apple cider. While ciders are made wherever apples are grown, this fixation has become especially deep rooted in American culture. English settlers started the craze out of disappointment with the bitter crab apples the New World had to offer. They began importing their own apples seeds and thus the American orchards were born.

Once the apple pies and apple butter had been made, the left over apples were pressed and stored in barrels to ferment. In recent years, hard apple cider has had a trendy new makeover with bottles of cider aged in fancy barrels. Apple cider cocktails are similarly making a big comeback. Here are a few to inspire apple lovers, and as a reminder that apple cider is not only served warm with a cinnamon stick!

Apple Inferno

• 8 ounces of hard cider (recommended NY International Beer Competition winning cidery's Angry Orchard Crisp Apple)

• 3 ounces bourbon (recommended Cleveland Underground Apple Wood Finished)

• ½ ounce Ancho Reyes Ancho Chile Liqueur

• Top off with ginger ale

• Crushed ice

Place crushed ice in large glass. Pour bourbon and chili liqueur into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Add cider to shaker and gently stir. Pour contents of shaker over the crushed ice in a tall glass and top off with ginger ale. Garnish with a single apple slice (optional).

Miss Maple & a Pocket Full of Apples

• 5 ounces of hard cider (recommended Crispin Cider The Saint)

• 3 ounces Intermiel Gélinotte maple brandy liquor

• 3 ounces Bakon vodka (bacon flavored vodka)

• Garnish with a thin slice of apple or a piece of fried bacon

Pour maple brandy and vodka into a shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Add cider to the shaker and stir gently. Strain contents of the shaker into a large glass and garnish with either a slice of apple or one piece of crispy fried bacon.

Scrummy Scrumpy Cocktail

• 3 ounces of scrumpy cider (recommended JK’s Scrumpy Hard Cider, Farmhouse Organic)

• 2 ounces PX Sherry

• 1 ounce traditional dry sake (Gekkeikan was used for the recipe)

• ½ ounce of Monin ginger syrup, or homemade

• lemon wheel

• brown sugar

• ½ cup crushed ice

Choose a wide rimmed glass. Wipe/squeeze the juice from a lemon wheel around the rim. Turn glass upside down on a plate of brown sugar and rim glass. Place sherry, sake and syrup in a shaker with crushed ice. Shake well. Add cider to shaker and stir. Strain contents into glass.