What better way to celebrate everything you’re thankful for than with a sparkling cocktail made with seasonal fruit? This light Thanksgiving cocktail is the perfect accompaniment to the heavy meal that makes Turkey Day one of my favorite days of the year.

I recommend making it with gin — the juniper is a nice herbal counterbalance to the sweetness of the pear. However, it tastes great with vodka, too. I’m sure there wasn’t any Prosecco or pear on Plymouth Rock … but you can use Plymouth Gin.

Pilgrim’s Pear

1 1/4 oz. pear syrup (recipe follows)
1/4 oz. gin
Prosecco

Put gin and syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously for 20 seconds. Strain into a champagne flute and top off with Prosecco. For garnish, slice a Bosc pear lengthwise, halve one of the slices, and place both halves in the flute.

Pear Syrup

1 cup water
1 Bosc pear, peeled and sliced
1 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Once pears are fully cooked (approximately 10 minutes), strain out the pears and refrigerate the liquid. That’s your syrup. Pear slices can be used as a dessert topping.

Another Thanksgiving cocktail to try: Grateful Cranberry

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Gin, Holidays, Champagne. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.