Cranberry cocktail with basil & mint

This is Jack, Jeanine’s husband, and this is my first guest recipe…

Jeanine loves tart and herby cocktails, and does not love sweet drinks. So cranberries, mint, and basil (with vodka and champagne) seemed right up her alley for our at-home new years celebration.

I believe this recipe is fairly accurate, but I will admit that I was constantly adjusting for taste. And since taste involves drinking… well, you get the idea…

The first step is to make a cranberry-herb slush that you will mix with the two alcohols. It will be very tart before you dilute it. If you want to sweeten it up, make sure to taste by mixing a small amount with the champagne and vodka you’ll be pairing it with later. My first batch ended up tasting far too bland because I didn’t taste the final diluted version.

Without further ado, Cranberry Slush…

INGREDIENTS:

for the cranberry-herb mixture:
(this makes a lot of extra cranberry mixture – (about 8-10 servings). Store in the refrigerator for a few days, or freeze the extra for later. Or, make half of this mixture if you’re not serving a crowd).

3/4 bag of frozen cranberries (use the remaining 1/4 bag or so for garnish)
3 Tsp agave syrup (add to taste depending on the sweetness of your bubbly)
1/4 cup vodka
1/4 cup water (more if you need to get your blender blade blending)
Half a lemon’s worth of lemon juice
6 mint leaves
6 basil leaves

for the drink:
cranberry-herb mixture
vodka
champagne or other sparkling wine

METHOD:

Add ingredients for the cranberry-herb mixture into a blender and blend it at the highest setting. Make sure to close the lid or your kitchen will look like a crime scene (if I got cranberry juice on our marble countertops, it would have been a crime scene). If your blender has trouble, keep adding vodka/water until there’s enough liquid for the blender to blend it.

As I mentioned above, this makes quite a bit of slush, so feel free to reduce the amounts if you have a small blender or a magic bullet. Increase the amounts if you’re having a party or a drinking problem.

Once you have the slush, I recommend a mix of 1/3 slush, 1/3 bubbly, and 1/3 vodka… depending on how sweet or light you prefer your drink. Taste and adjust to your liking.