Alcoholic Recipes For Leftover Christmas Booze

Remember that wave of inspiration you had in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to use the brandy and vermouth you got in for Christmas to set up your own little cocktail bar at your NYE party? That never happened, did it? No, instead you just drank your usual vodka and lemonade all evening, leaving that bottle of blue curacao and the creme de menthe you bought with full enthusiasm sitting there untouched. You tried, but vodka and lemonade isn’t broke, so it doesn’t need fixing.

Nevermind. But now you’re left with some, erm, ‘interesting’ additions to your alcohol cupboard and no idea what to do with them. You won’t enjoy drinking them if vodka’s your favourite, so why not eat them (as part of a meal) instead?

Cooking with booze can create some gorgeous flavours and it’s a great way to use up any leftovers you’ve got knocking around from the festive season. Here’s a few ideas to get you started – we can’t think of any type of food that goes with blue curacao though, sorry. Save it for the summer instead.

Brandy is only consumed by elderly relatives, or people who are trying to get over a shock, it seems. Yet it seems like you should always have a bottle in at Christmas; your brother might actually buy you a gift for once and leave you in need of something to deal with the surprise, for example. But what do you do with the leftovers?

Well, chicken with mushrooms and a creamy brandy sauce is a tried-and-tested recipe that’s lovely and warming at this time of year.

Traditional fancy dishes like this have been a little lost to history – we usually cobble together some nachos when we’ve got guests these days, not alcohol-covered chicken – but that doesn’t make it any less tasty than it’s always been. Carrie’s Experimental Kitchen has a simple recipe for you to follow – you could even substitute the brandy for white wine, if you wanted.

Offering round vermouth to your Christmas guests might make you feel like you’re smashing the adulting, but could you confidently describe what it is? We can – *looks smug, quickly shuts down Google tab* – it’s a type of fortified wine. Still none the wiser? Don’t worry, neither were we. It’s basically wine that’s had stuff – herbs, plant extracts etc – added to it to give it a stronger taste and greater alcohol content.

This means it works great in dishes that rely on infused flavours, such as a risotto. You can use any white wine you’ve got rattling around the fridge to make Holly Cooks’ recipe for Italian crab, leek and pea risotto, but it’s ideal if you’ve got some vermouth to get rid of.

All of that veg will do you good following your Christmas indulgences and crab is a natural source of omega 3, which can give your health a boost – just what’s needed in January!

Whisky is probably the most useful beverage you’ll have left in your cupboard after the Christmas party season. You can use it to make a glaze for meat, put it in shortbread for Burns Night later this month, or even add it to chocolate brownies for an alcoholic kick.

But one of the best ideas we’ve seen for using up leftover whisky comes from Eat Like a Girl, who has used it to make whisky bacon jam. Yes, you did read that right. That’s something that really does exist, and it’s as amazing as it sounds.

This isn’t the kind of jam you’d spread on your scones though – well, you could, we’re not stopping you. Instead, use it as a chutney substitute in your sandwiches, or spread a little on your cheese on toast for a true taste sensation.

Mint and chocolate have long been a winning combination. Creme de menthe and chocolate is the more grown-up version, with a brilliant extra kick. So adding a little of the minty creamy alcohol – seriously, has anyone successfully made a cocktail out of this that wasn’t reminiscent of toothpaste?! – to chocolate brownies is a great way to use it up post-Christmas.

Stiff Peaks has a recipe for these that uses creme de menthe buttercream as a filling in between two thick wedges of chocolatey brownie goodness. It’s much more ‘posh mint choc chip’ than ‘toothpaste’, thankfully.

Raspberry chambord is another one that often pops up in the cupboard over Christmas and New Year. It’s perfect for making homemade French martinis, but the leftovers don’t go particularly great with meat, so working out what to do with them can be a conundrum.

We propose that you make this raspberry chambord cheesecake from Gluten-Free Farina that’s perfect if you’re avoiding gluten in your diet.

It has a chocolate crust made from crumbled gluten-free chocolate cookies, so you won’t miss a ‘normal’ base at all if you eat gluten yourself and you’re serving this up to coeliac guests.

The possibilities for cooking with your leftover Christmas booze are pretty much endless, but there is a limit. We don’t recommend coating chicken in blue curacao, or putting sambuca on your chips…but then again, we’re not going to be around to stop you.