Make an already easy, delicious cocktail even more colorful and festive – this cranberry caipirinha is refreshing and the perfect drink to toast the Holidays.
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I may have said before, but I never used to be a cocktail person. I think it’s partly having more of a savory palette as well as being brought up with beer or wine which I then adopted myself.
However living in Madrid near a few bars that did really good cocktails, and then New York not long after, did change my habits a bit. I still don’t have them all that often, but I will at least generally read through the cocktail menu.
If I see a caipirinha on there, it always tempts me. It’s my kind of flavors, and so I just had to try my hand at a cranberry caipirinha for #CranberryWeek. Easy, festively colored and so delicious, it’s the perfect seasonal take on a summer classic cocktail.
My first caipirinha
I’m pretty sure I first had caipirinhas in a small bar in Madrid near where a friend lived. The bar was conveniently at the end of the street from him, nice and easy for him to get to. For me and others, it was just as you were going up a hill and so a handy place to take a break.
I instantly loved their simplicity, the citrus flavor and the fact they weren’t as sweet as many cocktails.
I decided to try making a cranberry caipirinha as I was pretty sure cranberry’s natural tartness would fit right in with the lime. Plus, as I mentioned, the colors are incredibly festive so it looks the part too. The flavor is just as delicious as the original, with that slight tang of cranberry. It works so well.
How they’re made
A regular caipirinha is simply lime, sugar and cachaça – a spirit made from sugar cane. This cranberry caipirinha is not much different, although there is a slight extra step. I tried just muddling the cranberries in with the lime but you didn’t really get the flavor. I didn’t want to water it down with cranberry juice so instead made a kind of syrup/puree.
It’s a tiny bit more work but easy and makes all the difference. You add the syrup to the muddled lime, sugar and cranberries, along with plenty of ice and the cachaça. If you want to get really fancy, you can freeze cranberries into the ice cubes for an extra burst of cranberry color.
This cranberry caipirinha makes for a delicious cocktail perfect for the festive season. Easy to make, great flavor and festively colored to boot. You know you need to try one.
Try these other drinks perfect for the festive season:
- Cranberry whiskey sour
- Gluhwein (German mulled wine)
- Cranberry Moscow mule
- Sujeonggwa (Korean cinnamon tea)
- Plus get more cocktail recipes in the archives.
Cranberry caipirinha
Ingredients
- ¼ cup cranberries 27g
- 2 tbsp cranberry juice
- ½ lime
- 1 tsp sugar
- 5-6 cranberries
- a few cubes of ice
- 1.5 oz cachaça 45ml
Instructions
- Put the ¼cup cranberries and the cranberry juice in a small pan. Warm over a medium heat until the berries pop and go soft, squashing them to form a kind of jam texture. Remove from the heat and press through a small sieve to give a syrup/puree. You can do this in advance and in larger quantities to use for a few drinks. You should get around 2tsp from this quantity, enough for 2 drinks. Store extra in the fridge for a couple days.
- When ready to make drink, quarter the half lime and place the pieces in the bottom of a glass. Sprinkle over the sugar and add the 5-6 cranberries. Muddle them together so the sugar dissolves, cranberries split and juice comes from the lime (if you don't have a bar tool, then use the pestle from a pestle and mortar, as I do).
- Next, top up the glass with ice cubes, pour in 1tsp of the cranberry syrup/puree and the cachaça and stir slightly. Serve immediately.
Nutrition
See some of my favorite cooking tools and ingredients in the Caroline’s Cooking Amazon store. In many locations, you can have wine, spirits and more delivered to your door with Drizly.
See all the other cranberry recipes being shared today:
- Apple-Ginger Cranberry Sauce from Palatable Pastime
- Broccoli Salad with Cranberries from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
- Cranberry Blondies from Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
- Cranberry Oat Smoothie from Sew You Think You Can Cook
- Graavilõhe from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
- Cranberry Walnut Macaron with Orange Buttercream from A Kitchen Hoor’s Adventures
- Warm Cranberry Spread from Family Around The Table
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