Suburban bars fete the season with holiday cocktails
With chilly weather solidly upon us, it can be hard to muster enthusiasm for going out. But local bars are rewarding those who bundle up with a taste of the season, serving up hot cocktails and drinks filled with seasonal flavor to provide some holiday cheer.
The Vine in Grayslake has been whipping up holiday cocktails for years, typically offering one special for a few weeks or serving up a few in a flight. This year, the bar has been mixing up a new seasonal cocktail every Thursday from Halloween through the end of 2013.
“During the holidays, people crave pumpkin, chocolate, mint, apple,” said owner Michael Pruitt. “We typically go to a dessert style. A lot of times we go with more traditional cocktails like hot toddies.”
The bar will serve up warm spiced wine on Dec. 12, a candy cane martini Dec. 19 and a gingerbread martini on Dec. 26. The limited runs are in part due to the fact that the bar makes its own ingredients like candy cane-infused vodka and gingerbread syrup.
“A lot of those ingredients aren't available throughout the year,” Pruitt said.
Last week, The Saddle Room in Hoffman Estates started serving a pumpkin pie martini made with organic pumpkin vodka, rum, apple cider, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, cream and Liqueur 43.
“I'd been looking to do something for the season and one of our liquor reps came in with this pumpkin vodka,” said manager Jay Goldberg. “I normally don't like vodka, but this blew my socks off.”
Goldberg asked the bar's mixologist to design something incorporating the liqueur that would make for a good holiday cocktail, which he describes as “something that's warm and inviting and has some nice spiciness to it without being over powerful. Something that just reminds you of a good family meal.”
The Martini Room in Elgin gets seriously into the seasonal spirit, offering a flight including their candy cane, gingerbread, Christmas joy and Naughty Santa martinis. Each drink is complex, with the candy cane incorporating Godiva white chocolate liqueur, peppermint schnapps, crème de cacao, half and half and whipped cream vodka, while the Gingerbread features Bailey's, Goldschlager, butterscotch schnapps, vanilla vodka and cream.
If you're less into creamy cocktails, you can try the Naughty Santa, which contains rum, melon liqueur and blue Curacao but can also be mixed with grapefruit juice, gin and lime juice for a less sweet version that owner Ursula Borodzinska prefers. “Everyone has different preferences, so the idea is to give them different options,” she said.
Most of this year's drinks were also available in 2012, though the bar tweaked the recipes for some and added an eggnog martini made with thick eggnog brandy, bourbon, crème de cacao, and half and half. “They are pretty much the same but a little bit improved,” Borodzinska said.
Each drink has its own garnish. The candy cane martini is topped with lines of raspberry syrup, which create a striped pattern on the white drink, and is served with a tiny candy cane and a peppermint-sugar rim. The gingerbread is served in a graham cracker-rimmed glass with a touch of cinnamon on top, while the Christmas joy — a mix of coconut rum, Rumchata, half and half and amaretto — is garnished with coconut shavings.
“It has to look delicious. It has to taste delicious,” Borodzinska said. “Before you want to try it, it has to look festive. Your eyes are drinking, then your mouth is drinking.”