"thanksgiving drinks" news and stories

I've been a bit in my own isolated world lately trying to unpack into a new home in a foreign land. When a friend in New York told me on the phone that he's busy making plans to serve 18 people for Thanksgiving this week, I gasped. How could I forget that this week is Thanksgiving?

Casa Cóctel's kitchen is still a work in progress, so we won't have a full-on Thanksgiving dinner in Mexico this year. We are still waiting for the arrival of the wine and spirit collection and the newly restored vintage Faema espresso machine. With all that in my mind, I decided to just make it all easier with a Kentucky Joe, a tasty dessert drink made with bourbon and coffee liqueur.

Whether your Thanksgiving celebration errs on the Puritanical side, with extended family and tykes on the loose, or functions as more of a boozy bacchanal, this "Southern Comfort Barn Burner" cocktail should provide ample comfort to imbibers of all sorts.

If our Thanksgiving wine pairings didn't quite satisfy your thirst, Ezra Pound Cake's simple Southern Comfort and cider concoction will certainly fit the bill. In what she dubs "the official drink of Thanksgiving 2009," Ezra spikes some classic apple cider with some Southern Comfort, seasons it with cinnamon and brightens it with fresh lemon. She summarized the elegant drink best in her blog: "The combination works because the flavors in Southern Comfort -- especially the peach, orange and cinnamon -- dance with the apple in the cider, giving you a drink that's sweet and fruity, with an undercurrent of trouble. Just like Thanksgiving." We'll drink to that!

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Prosecco is a celebratory and affordable sparkling white wine sure to jump-start the Thanksgiving festivities. In this sweet sparkling recipe from "Mix Shake Stir," prosecco tops peach liqueur for an elegant sip.

Get the recipe to this cocktail along with many others after the jump.

We all know that while Thanksgiving can be one of the nicest days of the year, it can also be a trying one. Many of us spend the day with relatives we don't usually mingle with, or at least the number of family members we have to deal with on Turkey Day increases dramatically. Uncle Freddie and his dirty jokes, your nephew who can't stop talking about how much money he makes, the mother-in-law with the annoying laugh. Some people deal with this by smiling a lot, some deal with it by avoiding some people, and some eat a lot. What do others do?

Booze!

OK, it's probably not a great idea to get sloshed while you're trying to cook and carve a turkey, but holidays were made for cocktails too. Maybe you can have this after all of the big work is done, or later after dinner is done and it's coffee and cocktail and talking-time.