Season's Greetings

My latest drink is Season’s Greetings.  I’ve owned these glasses for years.  They spend most of their days stored with the Christmas decorations and every December I rediscover how beautiful they are.  They’re truly gorgeous and I’m a bit sad we spend such little time together.  This year, I wanted to make a cocktail to honor these festive ladies that also brings to mind some of my favorite Christmas memories.  When trying to come up with flavors for this one, I dove deep into items that remind me of Christmas.  One very specific thing  is the smell of navel oranges. Growing up, Santa always put an orange in the toe of my stocking.  No matter what age I was or what else was surrounding it, there was always an orange in there.  And the whole stocking would smell like a orange.  To this day, just a whiff of a navel orange’s peel reminds me of opening my stocking on Christmas morning.  So I thought I’d start with juice fresh from a navel orange.  I then decided to make a Christmas simple syrup with rosemary, cinnamon, star anise and clove.  It really brought all the other smells that remind me of Christmas together as a sweet Yuletide syrup.  I threw in some cardamom bitters and when I mixed the three, I loved the festive smell and taste. I didn’t want to disrupt the Christmasy flavor with too bold of a booze, so I ended up using vodka to goose it up.   I then topped with a bit of ginger seltzer to give a boost of bubbles for the Christmas Spirit.  This may be one of my favorite drinks that I’ve created and a perfect way to honor and celebrate Christmas past, present, and future!