Whether you're having family over for Thanksgiving or throwing a New Year's Eve party, it's nice to be able to offer your guests a festive cocktail to get into the holiday spirit.  These simple recipes will make you look like a master bartender.  With their bright colors and sweet tang, they're sure to be a hit.  

Best of all, these drinks make use of the simple syrups made when candying cranberries and orange peels. Simple syrup is a 1-to-1 mixture of sugar and water.  After using it to candy fruit, the syrup takes on the flavor of that fruit. Re-using it makes these red and orange cocktails green, too!

Cranberry Cosmopolitan

Ingredients

• 4 parts vodka 
• 1 part triple sec
• 1 part cranberry simple syrup
• 2 parts cranberry juice
• 1 part lime juice

Instructions

Mix all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Serve in a sugar-rimmed glass with an lime wedge or float a candied cranberry in the glass.

Orange Martini

Ingredients

• 3 oz vodka
• 1/4 oz triple sec
• 1/4 oz orange simple syrup
• 1 dash orange bitters

Instructions

Mix all four ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Serve in a sugar-rimmed glass with an orange wedge or a ribbon of candied orange peel.