Festive Winter Holiday Citrus Cocktail

Who doesn’t like a festive cocktail to enjoy with friends and family around the holidays? My preference is typically a nice glass of a bold red wine, but on occasion, I can be convinced that a mixed drink is just as satisfying. The only thing I ask is that it not be overly sweet and is somewhat refreshing.

Festive Winter Holiday Citrus Cocktail checks all of the boxes for me to give up my glass of wine. If you’ve never had elderflower liqueur, it has elements of fruit and sweet florals but is very smooth and can be matched with many different beverages. Combined with gin in this cocktail, along with freshly squeezed tangerine (or mandarin orange) juice and ginger beer, this is an extremely refreshing drink. It is made festive for the holidays with the addition of pomegranate arils and fresh mint sprigs.

Prepping the Ingredients

There is not much to prep for this cocktail, which makes it a very easy drink to prepare. Start by cutting your tangerines (or mandarin oranges) in half with a Trimmer.

Squeeze the fruits until you have a one-third cup of juice and set aside.

Next up is the pomegranate. The key to cutting a pomegranate is making sure that you don't cut into the arils (seeds), which hold all of the juice. Use a 4" Gourmet Paring Knife to cut the flower stem off of the pomegranate. Then score the fruit along the ridges/ribs (the wider part of the fruit). You'll want to cut through the red rind and most of the white pith, starting from the top of the flower area to the bottom of the stem.

Pull the pomegranate pieces apart using your fingers. Prepare a bowl of water, hold each section of pomegranate over or in the water and gently push out the seeds with your fingers. The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl, while the pith will float to the top. Scoop out the pith, drain the water and you have whole pomegranate arils ready to be mixed into your cocktail.

To learn how to cut a pomegranate and remove the arils, take a look at our video tutorial.

Making the Cocktail

This recipe makes one cocktail and we advise making each drink separately. Start by placing a layer of pomegranate arils onto the bottom of a cocktail glass. Fill the glass with ice and add the gin, elderflower liqueur and tangerine juice. Stir gently to blend. Top the drink off with some ginger beer and then add additional pomegranate arils to the top of the drink, along with a sprig of mint.

This Festive Winter Holiday Citrus Cocktail was surprisingly refreshing with elements of fruit and floral. The ginger beer is absolutely necessary as it gave the cocktail some fizz. If you don’t like ginger beer, you could substitute some ginger ale or lemon and lime soda, but you need something fizzy to cut the sweetness. This is a cocktail I would definitely have again. We hope you enjoy!