Are you like me?  You make loads of mince pies for Christmas but they don’t get eaten on Christmas Day, you reheat them for Boxing Day and they STILL don’t get eaten and after a couple of weeks, when they’re turning blue and furry, you eventually relent and let the wild birds have them.  This year I think I’m definitely giving the mince pies a miss and going to indulge in one or two of these concoctions.

I usually have most of the ingredients hanging around the drinks cabinet and kitchen cupboards.  The only thing I have to buy in is the gold rum which I’ve discovered is readily available at our local supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asda/Walmart and Waitrose) for between £11 and £15 a bottle.

This is just for one serving but I suspect that you probably wouldn’t want more than one, particularly if you’ve had wine and liqueurs at lunchtime!

Ingredients

25 ml (1 fl oz) Brandy

25ml (1fl oz) Gold rum

50ml (2 fl oz) Port

2 tsp mincemeat

2 wedges Clementine/Satsuma/tangerine, squeezed

Lemon zest to garnish

Method

Place all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Add a handful of ice and shake hard.

Strain the drink into a martini glass using a fine strainer. Garnish with lemon zest and serve.

If you don’t have a cocktail shaker then just mix it all up vigorously in a glass, put some ice into a cocktail glass, use a tea strainer to pour the cocktail over the ice and enjoy!  It may not be quite as smooth as one that’s put through a fine strainer but hey, once you’ve had sherry, wine, liqueurs, etc are you really going to notice?

I’d also suggest that if you can’t afford the gold rum, substitute it perhaps with white rum – I can pick up a bottle of supermarket brand relatively cheaply and, once Christmas is over, I can use it for my favourite after work tipple, white rum and coke!

Bottoms up as they say over here in the UK!!