Back at the beginning of December, I was chatting with our Mom and she asked "Are you doing your cocktail calendar again this year?" When I replied in the affirmative, she said "Well maybe you could make a nice punch. I'm always looking for a good punch to serve at parties." Since today is also Twelfth Night (and sadly the last day of this year's cocktail calendar), we thought that today's drink should be that nice punch! So here's one for you, Mom. You can make a glass or a batch.

Oh .. kind of like yesterday, this drink doesn't necessarily tie into drums or drummers .. but it's Twelfth Night, so that's pretty close.

Twelve Drummers Drumming Cocktail

• 4 parts Bourbon (we used Maker's Mark)
• 2 parts St. Germaine
• 2 parts grenadine
• 12 parts brewed tea (we used English Breakfast)
• 6 parts Limonata

Combine liquor, grenadine and tea. If you're serving by the glass, pour into individual glasses over ice and then top up with appropriate amount of Limonata. Garnish with an orange wheel and some loose pomegranate seeds.

If you're serving into a punch bowl, add the Limonata just before guests arrive to keep it bubbly. To fancy it up, add an ice ring to your punch bowl!

Cocktail Notes

• We used English Breakfast tea in this version; it was a smidge bitter. In the summer when we made bourbon slush, we used a bourbon vanilla tea; it was a little smoother and would probably work a little better. If you have some tea options, you can play around.

“…to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Yep, you guessed it. THIS was our white whale.

It started off simply enough .. we thought "Hey, these lords, they probably want a good stiff drink after all that leaping. Let's give them something strong and (traditionally) manly. Let's start with a Blood and Sand and go from there." Aside from the obvious appeal that the original cocktail is from a bullfighter movie (talk about leaping!), it also uses whisky as a base. We try different booze bases to keep you, gentle reader, interested. After all, not everyone are the ardent bourbon-lovers like we are.

We tried several variations and combinations of Jameson Irish Whiskey (because the only scotch we had was Kate's birthday scotch, Glenmorangie with a Sauternes finish, and she'll be damned if she's putting that in a cocktail) with Lillet (instead of the sweet vermouth), orange juice, Cherry Heering, port (see cocktail note 1), Root, Fernet Branca and cranberry sauce (see cocktail note 2).

After multiple hours, we called it a day and resolved to start fresh on the 'morrow.

With a bourbon base.

Ten Lords a-Leaping Cocktail

• 2 parts bourbon (we used Buffalo Trace)
• 1 part Lillet
• 1 part Cherry Heering
• 1 tsp leftover cranberry sauce
• Apothecary Cherry Cedar Bitters

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake very well. Double strain over ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a light twist of orange.

Cocktail Notes

1. We had a guest bartender attending during our first session. Part of the time we spent trying various ingredients to see if they would go together. One that surprised us was a 1:1 Lillet/port combo. VERY smooth. Our guest bartender, Marni, dubbed it "The Tipsy Mommy".
2. Jam cocktails are quite popular where Drew hails from (you go into a bar, choose a base spirit and a base jam, then they riff on it a bit and make you a tasty cocktail). We'd been wanting to try something like that. We had some cranberry sauce leftover from Christmas dinner, so we incorporated it. The sauce was homemade with real cranberries (hence the double straining); it also had maple syrup and Grand Mariner in it – so that may effect the taste of the cocktail, depending on what kind of cranberry sauce you use.