This month, Artistic Director Rebecca Mordan is sharing how to make a delicious spiced festive drink that she made whilst in San Francisco with our stateside Team Scary member Christina Li!
To make this drink you will need:
- Spiced apple juice. Make your own by mixing your choice of apple juice with any combination of cardamom, cinnamon, perhaps a clove (I urge against more than one clove as it really dominates and makes everything really medicinal), peppercorn (I particularly like pink ones), allspice berries, a bit of fresh vanilla pod, a hunk of fresh ginger, and a chunk of fresh nutmeg.
- Hearty splash of brandy (add to taste)
- A nice Riesling white wine
- A good quality ginger beer (Fentimans works well for this recipe)
- And ideally some home-made cranberry sauce (but could qualify shop bought will be fine!)
Here, Becca shares how to make this treat:
“Shake the spiced apple juice, brandy and the cranberry sauce together in a shaker – get them really well mixed together. Get a long glass, a highball glass, and pour that mixture over ice, it should make up about a third of the glass. Then, add the white wine taking the glass up to two thirds full, then fill to the top with the ginger beer.
I was in San Francisco when I made this up, staying with my friend Christina who hosted me for Friendsgiving and she had made the most amazing home-made cranberry sauce and that’s what inspired this recipe. The Americans really commit to the holiday season, they toboggan straight from Halloween, through Thanksgiving into Christmas and the New Year!
You’ll see Christina pictured happily with this tasty drink in her hand, with her witch from Halloween on her window, as she looks forward to drinking the Star of San Francisco with her family over Christmas. I hope you get to do the same and sending you all very merry scary little holidays all round!”
