Welcome To Wonkette Thanksgiving Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Cold Turkey!

Because sometimes, you need an island hideaway to escape from the family.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. For the Thanksgiving holidays, I wanted to write a strong cranberry cocktail. This one’s a glorious tiki-fied Bay Breeze-style sipper, perfect for helping you ignore that cranky uncle. Thanksgiving can get a little weird sometimes, so I’m providing some options. No fancy rum and you’re raiding the liquor cabinet in desperation? I’ve got you covered. Need to make a punch for the relatives? No sweat – let’s go Cold Turkey! Here’s the recipe:

Cold Turkey

4 oz Ocean Spray 100% juice cranberry cocktail

2 oz pineapple juice

1 oz cinnamon syrup

1 oz lime juice

1 oz Smith and Cross rum

1 oz Stiggins' Fancy Pineapple rum (you may know this as the unfortunately named Plantation rum; they're working on it!)

4 dashes Angostura Bitters

 Variations: Swap the rum for 2 oz Bacardi Light, or 2 oz of good vodka. For a non-alcoholic option, use 2 oz of ginger ale instead of the alcohol. 

Shake all ingredients and pour over ice into a tiki mug. Garnish with swizzle stick and cranberries.

Ocean Spray has been pushing the limit on what cranberries can do ever since it was founded in the 1930s. It’s a part of their DNA as a company ; they’re a farmer’s co-op as opposed to a standard corporation. As a result, it’s in their members’ interest to sell as many cranberries as possible, in as many ways as possible, all the time.

Ocean Spray didn’t invent cranberry sauce, but they certainly popularized it as a standard on the Thanksgiving table. More to the point, Ocean Spray’s been pushing bartenders to use its product for decades. In the 1960s, Ocean Spray published the recipe for the Sea Breeze. Vodka, grapefruit juice, and cranberry cocktail isn’t terribly exciting, but it’s a starting point. I chose to start with the Bay Breeze, a variation that swaps pineapple juice for grapefruit juice.

From there, it was off to the tiki bar for more inspiration. Adding some spice, sour, and sweet to the basic Bay Breeze formula is like putting gravy on the turkey breast; it only makes a good thing better. A heavy hand with the Angostura bitters is a great play here. Even if you can’t get your hands on high-quality rum, it’ll bring a ton of character to the party.

Let’s talk ingredients. I’m giving you a lot of options here. Thanksgiving throws some odd situations at us, so best to be prepared for anything.

Ingredient shot. You know it's a tiki drink when you cant fit all the ingredients in the picture. Matthew Hooper 

Cranberry Juice: I prefer 100 percent juice cocktail instead of the classic version of Ocean Spray. No need to drink more sugar than necessary. It’s a given that the “100% juice” version uses apple juice to get its sweetness, which isn’t great either, but this isn’t exactly a health drink. Cranberries in their natural form have almost no sugar, so some sweetening is needed. Pure cranberry juice is quite expensive and quite undrinkable. Some top-notch bars make a cranberry syrup for cocktails – 50 percent all natural juice, 50 percent sugar, heated until smooth. I applaud the sentiment, but it’s over the top for this glass.

Pineapple Juice: Canned is stronger and tastier than fresh in cocktails. I use the small cans from Dole.

Cinnamon Syrup: Making this is easy – ½ cup water, ½ cup sugar, 1 3” cinnamon stick. Put it all in a pot and heat until clear. The syrup benefits with some sit time. Make this in the morning and let it sit, cinnamon stick and all, in the fridge. It’ll be great for the evening nightcap. Make some extra as a treat for your morning coffee or tea.

Lime Juice: Always fresh, never bottled. Plastic fruit provides plastic juice.

Booze: To make a strong, complex tiki drink out of this, I went to my favorites. Stiggins Fancy Pineapple has the best all-natural flavor pineapple of any rum on the market. (If you're looking for it at the liquor mart, you won't see "Stiggins" very easily. While they're working on a name change, the label still says PLANTATION.) Smith and Cross is a high-proof Jamaican rum that somehow makes even canned fruit juice taste tiki-bar-at-the-beach fresh. However, you might find yourself stuck with the contents of Uncle Ernie’s liquor cabinet. If so, fear not. The cranberry/ pineapple/ lime/ cinnamon base is solid in this cocktail. If you revert back to something resembling a Bay Breeze, you’ll still have a great time. Add in some vodka, or Bacardi light rum, and you’ll be fine.

Or maybe you’ve been asked to make a punch for the entire family on short notice. Here’s a starting point that should carry you through. Substitute some or all of the booze with ginger ale. If you’re going the punch route, look at the ratios instead of the measurements as your guide – 1 part pineapple, 1 part booze or soda, 2 parts cranberry juice; sweet and acid to taste. Taste as you go, and you’ll rise to the occasion in style.

Angostura Bitters: Who would guess that tart cranberry and bitter Angostura could play together so well? This is a flavor combination to file away for later use; I’m already thinking of new recipes based on this happy discovery.

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