Elizabeth has Mr. Darcy. Ron has Hermoine. Katniss has both Peeta and Gale. And Rudolph has Clarice (and we're not talking about Jody Foster in Silence of the Lambs either!). Clarice is the fetching doe who doesn’t care that Rudolph’s honker is bright red beacon. She even defies her parents' orders and joins the search party for her crimson-beaked beau. For that, she definitely earns a place on Santa’s Nice List and a spot on our advent calendar.
Initially, we were inspired by Clarice’s red and white polka dot bow and thought about making a candy cane martini. But it's Christmas and who doesn’t love a little chocolate with their booze, so we turned it into more of a peppermint patty martini. We wanted to make our own vanilla vodka and this gave us the perfect opportunity to try it out.
The Clarice Cocktail:
- 2 oz vanilla-infused vodka
- 1 oz creme de cacao
- ½ oz peppermint schnapps
- ½ oz cream
- agave or corn syrup
- candy canes
- cocktail glass
Crush candy canes. Rim the cocktail glass with the syrup and roll the rim into the crushed candy cane. Pour the vodka, creme de cacao, peppermint schnapps and cream into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and pour into candy cane rimmed glass.
Cocktail Notes:
We’ve read all over the internet that homemade vanilla vodka is way better store bought. And yeah, it is. In a large bottle of vodka, place three whole vanilla beans (split them length-wise, but don't scrape them). Let steep for at least two weeks. Ours has been going for three weeks now and it's delicious. We did strain out the vanilla beans after three weeks just to make sure that it didn’t turn into vanilla extract.
Syrup was used in rimming the glass because we thought the candy cane pieces might have been a little large to stick with water. If your pieces are finer, water could be used in place of the syrup.
Inspiration:
Oh, Rudolph. Always showing off for the girls at the Reindeer Games. Also - remember Comet? Didn't we ALL hve a coach like him? He definitely needs a good drink.
Gotta love people who do illegal clips the old-school way and just set up a camera in front of their TV. No messin' around with DVD ripping software. Nice.
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