Spice things up this holiday season with this alcoholic ginger beer (a great beer
alternative) and haskap berry cocktail. While these flavors aren’t the
first things to necessarily cross your mind, the citrus notes in the ginger beer
paired with the super food Haskapa juice are actually quite complimentary.
Whether you’re hosting a crowd and want to put something different out on the table, or you’re cozy inside and just looking to toast to something new this recipe is for you!
notes of oak and cedar make this sweet, medium bodied (with frothy carbonation) the perfect little flavor of sweet ginger. Slightly less spicy than traditional ginger beer, Crabbie’s Ginger Beer is a lot more smooth on the palette, thus making it great for cocktails and punches.
Far East for inspiration and sourced the best ingredients including the finest ginger and exotic spices. All Crabbie’s
Ginger Beer is produced using real ginger in a ‘steeping’ process which
takes up to 8 weeks combined with spices and citrus fruits. Since
its exciting arrival in Canada, the brand has become known and loved
for its light-bodied spicy fresh ginger flavour, notes of citrus and
warming finish, best served over ice with a slice of citrus”.
On its own the ginger beer is quite lovely, but I’d been meaning to try the Haskpaa juice in a recipe since I received it in a goodie bag from meeting Jamie Oliver with Sobey’s a while back (read that post here). I figured why not try to make a cocktail?. While I’m not the most affluent bartender I typically drink the most boring drinks (Gin and soda, and pinot grigios) I figured I’d still give it a go. Why not right?
Did you know that Haskap berries are only grown here in Nova Scotia and in Japan? There‘s a lot of buzz about these berries in the media and among the nutritional world. The Haskap berry is SUPER high in antioxidants, and they even have double the amount of antioxidants of blueberries! Which are pretty good in their own right, but the Haskap berries are also very high in Vitamin C and Potassium (both of which are great during the cold winter months when we tend to get sick and run down).
Now I realize that blabbing on about the health benefits for an alcoholic drink seems odd, but I mean if you’re going to have a drink you might as well add some good things to it right?
Inspired by the bittersweet sparkler I decided to use the ginger beer instead of all the syrups, and cider. As you can imagine this gin and soda drinking lady doesn’t really like sweet drinks. I often actually ask bartenders to omit the sugar altogether because I typically find them overly sweet (yup I’m that girl). I also firmly believe that really sweet drinks tend to increase the likelihood of a hangover, I mean alcohol is already sugar. I don’t want to make my body take on too much I’m not 21 anymore people. You however could feel free to add any sweetner, and/or syrups you like, or even a little apple juice could probably work here too.
It’s super easy, and you could feel free to add something a little more sweet or a little more bitter it’s totally up to you. As is, it’s a pretty good drink, but I love the idea of playing around with different drink recipes or bringing Crabbie’s Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer as an alternative to wine as hostess or foodie gift. I love trying new things, so I can imagine the hostess and/or or foodie in your life would too. But of course please drink responsibly, and please make arrangments to get home safe.
Be sure to follow @Crabbiescanada and @Haskapa on instagram for more of their recipes.
*This post was sponsored by Crabbie‘s however all opinions expressed belong to the author.
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