Mince-pie old fashioned

Portion size: Serves 10
Hands-on time 15 min, plus cooling and 2 days infusing
Difficulty: easy

Freezable

Gluten-free

Vegetarian

Tom Shingler

Head of food, delicious.

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This versatile Christmas cocktail recipe makes a fabulous drink, as well as a flavoured butter to use in festive baking and an extra-boozy mincemeat for mince pies. ‘Washing’ the bourbon in lightly browned butter gives it a creamy, slightly viscous texture and rounds out the harsher notes of the spirit, making the cocktail very smooth indeed.

For another festive sip, check out our Santa’s sidecar cocktail.

Before you start

Make ahead This cocktail will keep indefinitely in the fridge or freezer. The butter and mincemeat will last for a week, covered in the fridge.

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Ingredients

200g unsalted butter
600ml bourbon or rye whiskey
200g mincemeat (make sure it’s veggie if it needs to be)
¼ tsp fine salt
10 dashes Angostura bitters
Orange peel twists to serve

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Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, then leave to bubble for around 5 minutes or until the bubbling turns into foam and the butter starts to brown. Pour into a non-reactive (toughened glass or stainless steel) heatproof container and leave to cool slightly.
Add the bourbon/rye whiskey, mincemeat and salt, stir thoroughly, then cover and set aside in the fridge for 2 days.
After this time, the butter should have solidified and risen to the top – remove this and save it (see Make Ahead). Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a freezerproof container, then into bottle(s) with a funnel (or keep it in the container). Keep the mincemeat for baking.
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Add the bitters and 50ml water to the liquid, shake or stir to combine, then keep in the freezer until ready to serve. If you’re giving a bottle as a gift it will be fine at room temperature, but it’s best served straight from the freezer.
To serve, shake the cocktail, then pour around 65ml into a rocks glass filled with a single large ice cube. Stir well, then garnish with an orange twist, rubbing the orange peel around the rim of the glass beforehand.

Nutrition

132kcals Calories
0.5g (0.3g saturated) Fat
0g Protein
0.5g (0.5g sugars) Carbs
0g Fibre
0.1t Salt

Quick wins & tips

Tom’s bottled cocktail tips and know-how

Most – but not all – cocktails can be mixed in advance. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Take it with a pinch of salt You’ll notice a tiny amount of salt in this cocktail recipe. It’s a trick I picked up from a master mixologist a few years ago that I swear by. Just like in food, salt opens up the palate to make your cocktail taste more of itself (without tasting salty). It’s a subtle yet effortless improvement – and a neat talking point.

Enjoy the water feature Cocktails are shaken or served with plenty of ice not only to cool them down, but also to dilute the mixture with a little water. This tempers the harshness of the alcohol, allowing you to taste the cocktail more. If you’re pre-mixing cocktails designed to be served in glasses without ice, you need to add some water to account for the dilution.

Stay chilled Pre-mixed cocktails can be kept in the freezer, meaning you can make them ahead of time and they’ll be perfectly chilled at all times. Alcohol doesn’t freeze, but if you have a higher concentration of non-alcoholic liquids in your cocktail (fruit juices or water to account for dilution, for example), they can become a little slushy. Don’t fret – a good shake of the container or bottle will break up the slush and remix the cocktail in an instant, ready to pour.

Master the golden ratio The beauty of cocktails is that they’re easily scaled up – you just need to keep the ratios the same. This recipe makes enough for 10 drinks, but for bigger gatherings the recipe be doubled, tripled, quadrupled or more.