Holiday Cocktail Party: Drink Recipe: The Cherry Clarion

Ever since I’ve been old enough to buy booze, I have experimented with mixology. For most of my 20s I lived in a house with a partially-finished basement in which we built a bar, and I spent many nights playing bartender to all of my friends. I have always enjoyed coming up with signature cocktails.

These days, the drinks I invent are centered around very special spirits as I build a small collection of top-shelf liquors. My favorite is vodka, and I am a big supporter of the buy local movement, so when I found out there was a distillery only an hour from my house I knew I had to sample their wares. I am smitten with the Grand Traverse Distillery cherry flavored vodka! The amateur mixologist in me took over and I was determined that I had to come up with some drinks using it. Here is one creation that I have perfected after several tries: the Cherry Clarion. I came up with it for a special blog event: the Holiday Cocktail Party! Be sure to read all the way to the end of the post to see a selection of other drinks created by some of my fellow bloggers!

The color of the drink has a subtle gradient from pink at the bottom to brown in the middle to clear at the top, an effect that is achieved by adding the ingredients in a particular order.

Ingredients:

• 1 oz cherry vodka (mine came from Grand Traverse Distillery)
• 1/2 oz amaretto (ideally I would have used Disaronno, but I already had the cheaper stuff on hand)
• Tonic water
• A splash of grenadine

In a tall glass, pour vodka and tonic water over ice. Leave a small amount of room at the top of the glass.

Carefully pour in the amaretto, followed by a splash of grenadine. Each of these layers is heavier than the last and will sink to the bottom.

Garnish with three maraschino cherries on a bamboo skewer. Serve and enjoy!

Make sure you also swing by my friends’ blogs to see these other holiday drink recipes!

Cheers!

More cocktail recipes:

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