Cranberry Gin
Thank you to my friend Paul for this recipe. Just thinking about it makes me look forward to a chilly evening in front of the fire with a Cranberry Gin cocktail in hand. Slightly sweet and tart, this cranberry gin makes a wonderful warming winter cocktail. I shake with ice and a bit of Cointreau (or Grand Marnier) and serve up with a twist of orange zest. Drop a cranberry in the glass just for fun.
Cranberries will be on soon so now is the time to think about making up Cranberry Gin. You need to let this sit a month (longer is better) so make it early in the season and enjoy over the holidays. Make a few quart jars, it goes quickly and there isn’t as much gin in each quart as you think.
Cranberry Gin
Cranberries are pricked all over with a pin and pickled in gin for a month. A little sugar and orange zest rounds out the flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 1 pound bag of cranberries – washed and picked over. Remove imperfect berries as you go along.
- A 1/2″ by 3″ slice of orange zest – just the orange part, no white pith. Use a vegetable peeler to cut a long slice.
- 1 scant Tablespoon sugar – I use Bakers Sugar as it is finer and dissolves easily.
- Good but not great gin. I use Tanqueray
Instructions
- Wash the cranberries and dry them on a towel
- Clean a 1 Quart masson jar well
- Add the sugar and the orange zest to the bottom of the jar
- Sit down and listen to some music, watch TV show, chat with friends. While you are doing that, grab a clean pin (I use one with a round head. It is a bit easier on the fingers) and prick each berry several times all over. Prick, prick, prick, prick, prick, prick, prick, and then drop it into the jar.
- Do that to all of the berries that will fit in the jar.
- Add Gin to the top of the berries and cap tightly.
- Give the jar an easy back and forth shake to dissolve the sugar.
- Put the jar someplace cool and dark. Label it with the date, amount of sugar, type of gin if you are going to experiment.
- Come back in a few days and give it another shake. Top off with gin if needed.
- Come back in a month and you are ready to go.
Preparation time: A month
Cooking time: 15 minute(s)
Cranberry Gin Cocktail
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 oz cranberry gin
- 1/2 oz Cointreau
Instructions
- Fill a shaker with ice
- Add Gin and Cointreau and shake like you would shake a martini (that is rock the shaker back and forth to chill the gin but not make it frothy)
- Poor into a martini shell or tall slender flute
- Drop one or two gin-pickled cranberries in the glass for decoration (don’t eat them, they don’t taste like anything… well you can try one… it isn’t bad but really not much to talk about)
- Add a twist of orange
- Enjoy
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