3 Christmas Mocktail Recipes That Will Improve Your Nightcaps

‘Tis the season to be jolly! However, being jolly during the festive season is often accompanied by lots of alcohol, and with it hangovers. Despite being referred to as a nightcap, drinking excessive alcohol prohibits sleep and even just a couple of cocktails can reduce REM sleep and increase the chances of waking up during the night. This isn’t particularly desirable, especially on Christmas Eve. But if you still fancy a festive nightcap, follow our below simple Christmas mocktail recipes to create some tasty Christmas drinks that will aid your sleep.

Related: The Science Behind Why Alcohol is Bad Before Bed

Christmas Mojito Mocktail

First of the list of non-alcoholic Christmas cocktails, is this festive mojito. This is not only tasty but relatively easy to throw together and perfect for this season of entertaining.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces of fresh cranberries
• Sugar
• Red food colouring
• 1 large lime, chopped into wedges
• A handful of mint leaves
• Ice cubes
• Lemonade

How to Make a Christmas Mojito:

• Start by creating a cranberry syrup. Add a cup of sugar, a cup of water and all of your cranberries to a pot and let it simmer until the water has a cranberry flavour. This will take roughly 12 minutes.
• Next add the red food colouring to some more sugar and mix together in a large bowl. This mixture should then be used to create a red rim on each glass prior to adding your mocktail.
• Place around 2 wedges of lime into your prepared glass.
• Next add a few mint leaves in for taste.
• Throw in a couple of ice cubes.
• Next add roughly two tablespoons of your cranberry syrup
• Finish by filling each glass to the brim with lemonade.

Cranberry Apple Cider Punch

Next on the list of Christmas mocktail recipes is this appetising cranberry apple cider punch. Don’t worry because this uses non-alcoholic apple cider, however it can be changed to regular cider if you fancy it.

Ingredients:

• 950ml of non -alcoholic apple cider
• 470ml of cranberry juice or cooled cranberry syrup (see above)
• 470ml of ginger ale
• 340ml of frozen orange juice concentrate
• Apple slices
• Orange slices
• A cinnamon stick (optional)

How to Make a Cranberry Apple Cider Punch:

• Add the apple cider, cranberry juice, ginger ale and orange juice to a jug and mix together.
• Next simply pour your concoction into your glasses, leaving a little space at the top.
• Place a round slice of apple on the top of your glass so it floats over the mixture.
• Finally garnish with a slice of orange place over the rim of the glass and an optional cinnamon stick if you want extra flavour.

Snowball Mocktail

Last on our list of Christmas non-alcoholic drinks is this creamy snowball mocktail. This one is a successful Christmas mocktail for kids and is accompanied with a couple of candy canes for that extra festive twist.

Ingredients:

• 25g of sugar
• Cold water
• 500ml of diet lemonade
• 300ml of vanilla ice cream
• 100ml of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• Redcurrants

How to Make a Snowball Mocktail:

• Start by creating a sugar syrup. This involves bringing cold water and sugar to boil until the sugar dissolves completely. This may take roughly 5 minutes.
• Once this mixture has cooled, add roughly 10ml of it into a jug.
• Next add the 500ml of diet lemonade into the jug.
• Follow with 300ml of vanilla ice cream and stir your mixture together until the ice cream is a little less clumpy.
• Throw in 100ml of lemon juice and stir again.
• Add your concoction into a big glass.
• Garnish with a few redcurrants or cranberries for a bit of zest.
• Add an extra dollop of ice cream on top and finally dust with ground cinnamon for a festive nightcap.

How did you find our Christmas mocktail recipes? Let us know how you got on in the comments!