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Cocktails that are easy to create in a batch, friendly to the majority of palettes, and packed full of favorite Fall flavors are perfect for serving at the Thanksgiving holiday. Wild Roots Spirits shared bottles of infused vodka so that I may share a holiday cocktail ready for your Thanksgiving celebrations. While this post is sponsored all opinions are my own. To learn more about my posting policies regarding sponsored posts please visit my policies page. As always, thank you for reading more about the companies that help support this blog. 

 

Biting into a ripe pear is one of the biggest pleasures of the Fall months for me. The bright, crisp flavor of pear combined with the rich spices that are found in so many fall foods (cinnamon, nut meg, all-spice) makes for a wonderful cocktail to serve for a Thanksgiving meal. The cocktail is a perfect start to a Thanksgiving cocktail hour or Friendsgiving cocktail party.

 

Spiced Pear Cocktail featuring Wild Roots Vodka - A Well Crafted Party

Spiced Pear Cocktail featuring Wild Roots Vodka - A Well Crafted Party

 

About Wild Roots: Each bottle of Wild Roots starts with a five-time distilled and five-time filtered grain-based vodka, infused with over a pound of natural Northwest-grown fruit. Their infused vodkas include Apple, Marionberry, Raspberry, and Pear.

 

Single Spiced Pear Vodka Cocktail:

Ingredients/ supplies: 

  • Shaker filled with ice
  • Strainer
  • Martini glass
  • 1 1/4 oz Wild Roots Pear Vodka
  • 2 oz Spiced Pear Juice
  • 1/4 oz Ginger Syrup
  • 2 oz Ginger Ale
  • Pear slices for garnish
  • 3/4 oz Bourbon (Optional) (Bourbon gives this drink great depth of flavor, but if you are looking for a little less alcohol overall then just leave it out.)

Directions:

  1. In a shaker filled with ice pour in the Pear vodka, pear juice, ginger syrup and optional bourbon.
  2. Shake until chilled and mixed well.
  3. Strain into a martini glass.
  4. Top with Ginger Ale
  5. Garnish with Pear Slice and Enjoy!

 

Spiced Pear Cocktail featuring Wild Roots Vodka - A Well Crafted Party

Spiced Pear Cocktail featuring Wild Roots Vodka - A Well Crafted Party

 

Batch Spiced Pear Vodka Cocktail:

For holiday gatherings I really like making larger batches of cocktail mixes so that myself or my guests don’t have to spend the evening playing bartender. I create the base of this recipe and put it in the fridge to chill. Guests simply need to pour into a martini glass and top with the Ginger Ale. This batch makes 8 cocktails.

Ingredients/ supplies: 

  • Pitcher
  • Strainer
  • Martini glasses
  • 10 oz Wild Roots Pear Vodka
  • 16 oz Spiced Pear Juice
  • 2 oz Ginger Syrup
  • 2 oz Ginger Ale per glass – you’ll need 16 oz.
  • 2 oz Water
  • Pear slices for garnish
  • 6 oz Bourbon (Optional) (Bourbon gives this drink great depth of flavor, but if you are looking for a little less alcohol overall then just leave it out.)

Directions:

  1. Pour the pear vodka, pear juice, ginger syrup, water, and optional bourbon into a pitcher.
  2. Stir to mix and place in fridge to chill.
  3. Serve alongside martini glasses pre-garnished with pear slices and ginger ale ready to pour.
  4. Have guests pour in 4 oz of mixture (if there is bourbon) or 3 oz of mixture (without bourbon) and top with two ounces of ginger ale.

 

Spiced Pear Cocktail featuring Wild Roots Vodka - A Well Crafted Party

Cocktail Notes:

I took the easy way out with this cocktail and purchased a spiced pear juice and a ginger syrup (found both at my local New Seasons Market) however, you could totally make your own of both. Creating simple syrups are an easy way to customize a cocktail (and many non-alcoholic beverages). For this cocktail if I didn’t have the spiced pear juice I’d make a ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and all-spice simple syrup. If you choose to do this method then reduce your juice to 1 1/2 oz of pear juice and replace the 1/4 oz of ginger syrup with 3/4 oz of this spiced syrup.

Create Your Own Spiced Simple Syrup:

Ingredients:

  • 1 cups sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • nutmeg- freshly ground when possible
  • Fresh peeled ginger
  • 1 teaspoon all spice
  • 5 cloves
  • 5 black peppercorns

Directions:

  1. Combine sugar, water, and spice items into a saucepan over medium heat. Stir frequently.
  2. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat so that the mixture simmers for approximately 10 minutes.
  3. Turn off heat and let cool completely.
  4. Strain the spiced syrup into an airtight container.
  5. Spiced simple syrup can be stored in the fridge for up to one month.

A lot of cocktails are simply too sweet for my tastes. Don’t get me wrong… I like a sweet drink on occasion, but the sweetness can often be overpowering and give me a headache the next day. When a drink is smooth and has a complicated, but tasty profile I really dig it and come back to those type of drinks over and over again. In the Summer I gravitate towards refreshing flavors of free herbs and (usually) Gin. In the Fall I want spices and (often) Bourbon. The drink I’m sharing today is absolutely a Fall cocktail. I received a complimentary bottle of Amaro Montenegro for purposes of review. All opinions are my own. Please enjoy the Fall cocktail recipe I created plus a few tasty fall cocktails from Amaro Montenegro! This post is intended for readers of legal drinking age. 

Fall Cocktail with bourbon, apple, and amaro montenegro - A Well Crafted Party

Amaro is an Italian bitter herbal liquor that is often served as an after-dinner digestif. Amaro Montenegro has an alcohol content of 25%. Due to the bitter sweet flavor of the Amaro I decided that I would use it similarly as I would a bitters or vermouth in a cocktail. It gives the cocktail a complex layer of flavor that keeps it from being overwhelmingly sweet.

I knew from the moment I tasted Amaro that I wanted to use it to create a Fall cocktail that was complex in flavor. For a while I was really stumped on the type of cocktail I’d make. But, then I went to an Apple Cider tasting and found some beverages I felt would really pair well with the flavors of the bitter liquor. I chose to pair it with a dessert wine made from apples, a spiced apple cider, and bourbon. The flavors ended up going really well together. It is a pretty strong beverage however, so proceed with caution! This drink would be perfect for sipping next to a fire pit on a cool Fall evening.

 

Fall Cocktail with Apple, Bourbon, and Amaro Montenegro

Fall Cocktail with Apple, Bourbon, and Amaro Montenegro

Ingredients:

  • – 1 1/4 oz Bourbon of choice
  • – 1/2 oz Amaro Montenegro
  • – 3/4 oz Apple Wine
  • – Top with about 2 oz of a spiced apple cider
  • – Mixture of Brown Sugar, Granulated Sugar, and Cinnamon to rim your glass (optional)
  • – Apple slices for garnish  (optional)
  • – Ice (you can choose to shake over ice, strain and serve up or serve over ice)
  • – Glassware of choice (martini glass for serving up and rocks glass for serving over ice)

Fall Cocktail with Apple, Bourbon, and Amaro Montenegro

 

Directions: 

  1. For Serving Up: Wet the outside of your glass by rubbing an orange slice around the rim or dipping the rim into some of the apple wine. Dip the rim into the sugar and cinnamon mixture to give it a light coating. Then, combine the ingredients except for the spiced apple cider into a shaker filled with ice. Shake until well chilled and strain into a large martini glass. Top with approximately 2 oz of spiced apple cider. Garnish with apple slice and enjoy!
  2. For Serving on Rocks: Wet the outside of your glass by rubbing an orange slice around the rim or dipping the rim into some of the apple wine. Dip the rim into the sugar and cinnamon mixture to give it a light coating. Then, combine the ingredients except for the spiced apple cider into your glass on ice. Stir well to combine. Top with approximately 2 oz of spiced apple cider. Garnish with apple slice and enjoy!

Fall Cocktail with Apple, Bourbon, and Amaro Montenegro

 

Some other yummy cocktails to create with Amaro Montenegro:

Monte Jack-O-Lantern from Amara Montenegro featured on A Well Crafted Party

Monte Jack-O-Lantern – Derek Brown, Underdog:
1.5oz Amaro Montenegro
1oz pumpkin puree
1.5oz rye whiskey
3/4oz cinnamon syrup
3oz heavy cream
Nutmeg
Cinnamon

Autumn in New York from Amaro Montenegro featured on A Well Crafted Party

Autumn in New York – Derek Brown, Underdog
1.5oz Amaro Montenegro
1/2oz Allspice Dram
Hard Cider
Orange wheel

Stir Amaro Montenegro and allspice dram in a glass with ice. Top with hard cider and garnish with an orange wheel.

Shake all ingredients except cream over ice and double strain into a coupe glass. Pour heavy cream into a shaker and shake until thickened. Float the cream on top and dust with freshly grated nutmeg and cinnamon.

 

Have you ever tried Amaro? If so, what is your favorite way to drink it?

Birthdays are celebrated in my group of friends. We love a good excuse to get together to enjoy each others’ company, good food, and great drinks. My friend’s Brandon’s birthday was no exception to this very fine rule we all live by. His wife had the idea to throw together a whiskey tasting party and build our own steak salad bar. The food was epic… as always. The drinks… well, lets just say, we enjoyed some mighty fine whiskeys!

Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored. As with all my posts the opinions are my own. This post is intended for readers of legal drinking age. 

 

Whiskey Tasting Party from A Well Crafted Party

 

How to Throw a Whiskey Tasting Party

There are a couple of different routes you could go to throw a whiskey tasting party:

  1. Purchase all the whiskeys yourself and get a good variety of styles and brands. PRO: This way you know you will get to taste different things and you can even try different styles. CON: It can get expensive FAST.
  2. Give each guest a style of whiskey and let them bring a bottle. PRO: You will get to taste different styles of whiskey. CON: Guests may worry about costs of the certain style of whiskey given or may not know a good brand to bring.
  3. Ask guests to bring their favorite whiskey. PRO: You know you will get whiskeys your guests enjoy. CON: You may not get a good selection of styles of whiskey.

Our lovely host asked us each to bring our favorite kind of whiskey. (Note: She offered for us to just show up and enjoy the evening if whiskey wasn’t in the budget. She is cool like that.) Those who knew what they were going to bring shared the name of the whiskey in a Facebook Event so that we wouldn’t double up bottles. We ended up having all bourbon styles of whiskey except for one Irish Whiskey… but, all of them were tasty and everyone found at least one whiskey that they loved.