While classic cocktails are timeless for a reason (they’re good!), a fresh year inspires a fresh approach, and newly-paired flavors on the tongue. Here are two festive New Year’s Eve cocktails to welcome a new year—as well as every challenge, promise, and heartache that it may bring. Tasting the season in a glass is a way to pause and to cherish (or mourn?) the old year, while looking forward to what we will learn in the year ahead. These cocktails (one with and one without alcohol) feature citrus and Calvados—the warming apple brandy from Normandy that is so suited to cold Northern climes; and sour sumac with bayleaf-infused Earl Grey tea and fresh apple cider. Both New Year’s Eve cocktails share a fir-and-citrus-fragrant sugar rim (so keep your holiday tree!).
Photography by Marie Viljoen.
Sugar Rim with Fir and Citrus
While the fragrant sugar for the cocktail glass rims can be used at once, it can also be made a day or more in advance: Spread it out on a plate or on baking parchment to dry at room temperature. It will harden as the moisture from the zest evaporates. To store, or to use, crumble it finely between your fingers. Either keep in an airtight jar or spread it out on a saucer for dipping your glasses’ rims. (You will have some left over; it is delicious sprinkled onto cookies and cakes, across broiled salmon or roasted root vegetables, or stirred with lemon juice into hot tea.)
- 3 Tablespoons sugar
- Zest from 1 yuzu, Meyer lemon, clementine or mandarin
- Needles from one fresh fir twig, 4 inches long
- 2 Tablespoons juice from yuzu, Meyer lemon, clementine or mandarin
Microplane or finely grate the citrus zest. Mix it with the sugar in a small bowl. It will feel moist. In a spice grinder, spin the fir needles until they are fine. Scrape them out and mix into the sugar (wipe the spice grinder at once). Mix well and spread out on a saucer.
Pour the citrus juice into a second saucer. Dip the rims of each glass first in the juice, and then gently into the sugar, not pressing too hard. Allow the sugar rim to set for at least 10 minutes before pouring the cocktails.
Calvados Cocktail: Cold Snap
Citrus season peaks just in time for New Year’s Eve cocktails. The high-octane warmth of Calvados, which is a French brandy distilled from apples and pear cider, makes it a smooth partner for a hint of marmalade made from less acidic citrus fruits with very fragrant peels, like yuzu, bergamot, and Meyer lemon (oranges and mandarins work well, too). While you can make your own yuzu syrups and marmalades, they can be bought quite easily, online. The bergamot peel in Earl Grey tea, as well as the tea’s antioxidant tannins, balance the heat and the sweet.
Cold Snap Cocktail Recipe
Makes 2 cocktails
- 2.5 fl oz Calvados
- 1 fl oz Earl Grey tea, cooled
- ½ oz/1 Tablespoon yuzu marmalade
Combine the Calvados, Earl Grey tea and the marmalade in a shaker. Stir very well to combine. Now add ice, and shake. Strain, and pour into the prepared glasses.
A 10-ounce jar of Yakami Orchard Yuzu Marmalade is $13.96 on Amazon.