Recipes for Christmas ? A beverage bonanza

A cold Christmas is ideal for enjoying some excellent spirits. Not only champagne, but beer too is a welcome drink on Christmas Eve in many parts of the world. Special beers for Christmas are made by brewers all around the world. Surprisingly, they have different tastes and strengths and are made suitable for drinking during extreme cold weather conditions. Wine forms a popular drink in the Middle of Europe.

Christmas drinks are meant to warm the cockles of the heart, should be nutritious, fun and memorable. The drinks should highlight the holiday theme and flavour including the garnishes and decorated glassware. These add a festive touch as well as a dash of glamour to any gathering. In order to make a Christmas cocktail or mocktail, be innovative. Catch the eye of the drinker and also satisfy the taste buds. It should not be rich or creamy or sweet because it can spoil the appetite for Christmas dinner.

The presentation techniques play a great role. In this case, make sure to enhance the appearance by garnishing a drink. This can be easily done with ingredients such as sprigs of mint or rosemary, basil leaves, stalks of lemongrass, olives, cinnamon sticks, carrot, celery sticks or cucumber sticks, strawberries, cherries or pineapple wedges. Another interesting way of adding visual appeal to beverage recipes for Christmas is by frosting. Frosting means rimming a cocktail or other glass with sugar or salt. One can use pretty plastic straws, swizzle sticks or any other such decorative item to give a colourful and creative look to the drink. Enjoy these samples: Orange Beer, Cranberry Twister.

To make an orange screw, with a zester scrape a thin strip, starting at the tip of the orange on side and going round the orange to end at the tip again. Similarly remove more strips leaving a strip of the peel between each. Then slice the orange horizontally to give screw shaped slices. Give a small slit at one end of the slice and slip it onto the rim of the glass.To make a pineapple stick, cut pineapple into small cubes. Take small skewers and string one cube followed by two pineapple leaves held at a cross and end with another pineapple slice. Press them gently and place it over the rim of the glass.To make flavoured ice cubes, add a little water to pineapple, orange, khus and raspberry syrups. Pour them into separate ice trays and keep them in the freezer to set. Serve with soda.