Fall Cocktails

By Food & Wine
Updated January 11, 2017
Seasonal ingredients like cranberries and apples pair beautifully with ginger beer, white wine and hard cider to create delicious drinks. Whether you're looking for a comforting hot toddy or a tart pear sour, we've got your fall cocktail needs covered.
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Hard Cider Sangria

Christina Holmes
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Instead of wine, this juicy sangria is made with hard cider spiked with lemon juice and apple brandy.

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Stone Wall

Frances Janisch
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This updated version of a Stone Wall mixes rum with ginger beer and apple cider for a refreshing cocktail.

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Old Irish Cure

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According to the Irish-born Sean Muldoon, Irish people often drink whiskey mixed with ginger, honey and lemon to treat colds. This is a version of that potion. "With a bit of hot water," he says, "it becomes a terrific toddy."

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Hot Mulled Cider

Keller & Keller
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Ken Oringer preheats the Thermos he uses to transport his deliciously spiced cider by filling it with boiling water and letting it sit for a few minutes. Pouring the mulled cider into a Thermos that's already warm helps keep the drink hot.

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Amberjack

Wendell T. Webber
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Mixing beer like the apple lambic here into a cocktail may sound like a new trick, but old cocktail books are filled with beer concoctions. Lambics are Belgian beers that are fermented with wild yeasts.

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Manzarita

Wendell T. Webber
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To give this tequila smash an autumnal feel, mixologist Devlin DeVore adds apple juice ("apple" is manzana in Spanish) and cinnamon.

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Apple-Brandy Hot Toddies

© Rob Howard
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A hot toddy is basically a shot or two of any potent spirit added to a cup of hot water. Bartender Suzanne Bozarth puts a French spin on this warming drink with a slug of apple brandy, such as Calvados.

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Figa

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Bartender Charlie Hodge's fall-inspired cocktail uses fig-infused vodka and tea giving this delicious drink a earthy and fragrant taste.

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Fennel & Fig Infused Vodka

Frances Janisch
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This savory seasonal infusion takes advantage of homegrown produce including fennel.

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English Harvest

Tina Rupp
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Mixologist Ryan Fitzgerald felt inspired to create this fall cocktail after eating apples with peanut butter—a combination he loves but that wouldn't quite work in a drink. His solution was to mix almond syrup with apple juice and fiery apple brandy.

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Pear Sour

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Bruce and Sara Naftaly garnish this drink with poached organic Seckel pears to sweeten the flavor of the fall fruit.

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Cranberry-Spice Cocktail

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Fall flavors are created with the combination of tart cranberries, earthy bitters, and Aperol.

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Gingered Apple Sparkler

© Frances Janisch
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This spicy-sweet highball, developed as an alternative to the ubiquitous apple martini, is made with citrus vodka, apple liqueur and a healthy splash of ginger beer.

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Rosé Sangria with Cranberries and Apples

Petrina Tinslay
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This strong but not overly sweet sangria is nicely spiced with cinnamon, anise and cloves and it has just enough crushed red pepper to give it a tiny kick.Slideshow:Thanksgiving Sparkling Wine Cocktails

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Green with Envy

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Tea is an ingredient in almost all of the specialty drinks and many of the Asian-street-food-inspired dishes at this restaurant and lounge.Slideshow:More Recipes Featuring Tea

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Cranberry Caipirinha

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Marcus Samuelsson shares his recipe for a traditional Brazilian Caipirinha and with an African flare. He muddles cranberries along with the usual lime and replaces the Brazilian spirit cachaça (made from sugarcane juice) with Scandinavian aquavit

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Pear of Desire

Wendell T. Webber
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When naming this pear-flavored cocktail, Todd Thrasher turned to a French quote that roughly translates as: "The savage man eats out of necessity; the civilized man eats out of desire."

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Gaelic Punch

Tina Rupp
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For hot punches, young Irish whiskeys work best. Heat intensifies the tannic edge of older whiskeys; young ones stay smooth.Slideshow:Irish Whiskey Drinks

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Red Grape & Coconut Refresher

© Tina Rupp
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Bartender Albert Trummer whips up his beautiful and refreshing grape cocktail even in the fall.

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Kimchi Bloody Mary

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Warm up with this clever bloody Mary variation that gets its heat and flavor from pureed kimchi, along with a dash of Sriracha chile sauce.

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Whiskey Chai

Fredrika Stjärne
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For this warm, boozy nightcap, Linda Aldredge uses a blend of whole spices but home cooks can buy a Chai Spice Blend from most grocery stores.

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Caraway Rye Cocktail

© John Kernick
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Caraway-infused whiskey is delicious mixed with lemon juice and celery bitters in a cocktail.

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Manhattan Cocktail

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This Manhattan reflects the recipe in America's first cocktail book, 1862's The Bon Vivant's Companion, by Jerry Thomas. It calls for more vermouth than rye—the opposite of the modern Manhattan.

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Tommy Gun

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Mixologist Jacques Bezuindenhout's sour, which references the iconic firearm wielded by Prohibition-era gangsters, gets its zing from spicy fresh ginger and a generous pour of Irish whiskey.

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Barm Brack

Tina Rupp
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This creamy, spiced drink honors an Irish Halloween bread called barm brack, which contains currants and raisins. Traditionally, various objects—a coin, a ring, a pea—were baked inside the loaf as a kind of fortune-telling game.

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The Turkey's Wattle

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Inspired by a punch that Bill Norris made for Thanksgiving one year, the Turkey's Wattle gets its wonderful autumnal flavor from apple cider, ginger beer and a bit of allspice liqueur.

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Apple Cider–Ginger Shrub

Con Poulos
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This shrub (a sweet vinegar-based syrup) from F&W's Kay Chun is sweet and zippy and as good for a party as it is for a hangover.

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Tennessee Rose

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Mixologist Suzanne Bozarth sweetens this winter whiskey sour with cassis to give it a pink blush. Portland is, after all, known as the Rose City.

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Bacchanalian

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Chris Hannah loves serving this drink in the fall and winter--especially during Mardi Gras and the carnival season in New Orleans (January to March).

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