7 cocktails award-winning bartenders are ordering this holiday season

Tiffanie Barriere — a Tastemakers of the South award winner and cocktail educator with a heavy focus on Black culture — sticks to the classics.

“I’m still a sucker for an old-fashioned,” she said. The cocktail is a sipper, not a chugger, so it’s great for longer holiday gatherings.

At its core, an old-fashioned only needs three ingredients (bourbon or rye whiskey, water, and bitters), though sugar and orange are often included in basic recipes.

There are also countless ways to remix the drink. Barriere recommends trying different concoctions with things like peach preserves, apple butter, and pumpkin puree. She’s even had an old-fashioned made with zucchini soup broth — the possibilities are really endless.

Deniseea Head, a cocktail consultant and storyteller, won VinePair’s educator of the year award in 2023 for her work in the drink industry.

Her wintertime staple is a hot toddy. The drink typically calls for hot water, whiskey, lemon, honey, and spices, and she grew up drinking virgin versions on the rare occasion that the temperature dipped in Los Angeles.

“It’s festive, warm, and I feel like it’s lowkey healing,” Head told BI.

Along with her personal connection to this drink, the history of the hot toddy also resonates with her work in connecting cocktails with Black American culture.

“The hot-toddy recipe, in my opinion, has been passed down as somewhat of a cure within the African American culture, specifically because we haven’t always had access to things we need,” she said.

Daddy Long Legs, another successful bartender who recently placed third in Tales of the Cocktail’s Most Imaginative Bartender awards, has similar praise for the hot drink.

The bartender would also love to see people take the cocktail one step further by incorporating soups and broths.

“Personally, I’m brewing an idea for a chicken-noodle-soup hot toddy,” they told BI.

Lastly, the simple cocktail is easy to make in big batches, which is perfect for holiday parties and events.

Heriberto Mandez, the bar manager at Restaurant Good Luck and a finalist at the 2024 Rochester Cocktail Revival festival, likes to add a little theatrical flair to cocktails to liven up the holiday season.

His favorite drink is a take on a classic Sazerac — a cocktail made with whiskey, bitters, sugar, absinthe, and a citrus garnish. Mandez elevates the drink by caramelizing the absinthe and using a split base of rye whiskey and brandy to pay homage to the cocktail’s French and American history.

When everything is assembled, he also lights the cocktail on fire — a fun way to start a conversation at a party or just add a little brightness to the end of the year.

Jose Luis Mora, the lead bartender at the award-winning Sea Grill at Puente Romano Beach Resort in Spain, said he’s a fan of many holiday cocktails.

Although seasonal specialties like a winter espresso martini with peppermint or a pumpkin-flavored whiskey sour are fun, Mora finds himself reaching for a staple: glühwein.

Glühwein, or mulled wine, combines ingredients like red wine, vermouth, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and citrus fruits. It’s served warm, so it’s perfect for any outdoor holiday event.

Liana Oster, who’s worked at award-winning bars around the world and is now the beverage director at NoMad London, also loves classics. Her first favorite is eggnog.

“I love the process of making it, drinking it, and often gifting it,” she told BI. “I’ve been lucky to try a number of different styles, some classic, some contemporary, like pumpkin-infused or frozen.”

The fact that everyone has their own recipe gives the cocktail a special touch at parties and events.

Charné van Heerden, South Africa’s 2023 bartender of the year and the owner of HiBall, said holiday cocktails look a little different in the Southern Hemisphere — it’s summer there, after all.

“Hands down, my holiday go-to is any punch-style drink,” she told BI. “My easy-to-whip-up recipe consists of rooibos tea, strawberry oleo, citrus, and, of course, brandy (a lot of it).”

She serves it chilled to beat the summer heat, and making a big batch ahead of the party makes it easy for people to top up their glasses.

Stanislav Harcinik, the ambassador at the award-winning Mirror Bar Cocktail Bar in Washington, DC, shared some of his favorite Slovakian holiday cocktails from his homeland.

“In Slovakia, it’s very traditional to ‘spice’ our drinks during the holidays with our own fruit eau-de-vies like slivovica (plum) or jablkovica (apple),” he said. Eau-de-vie is a kind of brandy made with fermented fruits.

To finish off the traditional winter drink, he mixes it with some ginger juice, honey, and lemon.