I’m sure your Thanksgiving table looked just like mine: decorations, sweet potatoes, turkey, cranberries, you know, all the Thanksgiving fixings. Oh yeah. I left off the bottles of Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy, Angostura, and Angostura orange bitters. What? You didn’t have those sitting on you table? I’m going to give you a reason right now to have those on the table at Christmas.

You see, I’m a simple guy. I drink my eggnog from the jar because I don’t want to dirty a glass. I’d also rather figure out a cocktail from something I already have on hand than buy something else, which is what happened here. I was already buying Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider for Thanksgiving and I just didn’t want to buy one more thing like champagne. It might be a lame rationale, but it’s mine.

I based this cocktail off of the classic Champagne Cocktail which has a sugar cube, Angostura bitters, and a lemon twist. I wanted my cocktail to scream apple and spice. The apple cider is sweet enough, so I ditched the sugar cube and added the orange bitters because orange is a good flavor to mix with apple.

The Martinelli’s Cocktail

• .75oz Laird’s Straight Apple Brandy
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 dash Angostura orange bitters
• Top with Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider

Add the apple brandy and bitters to the coupe or flute and then top with the Martinelli’s. (Make sure your Martinelli’s is very cold.)

This is an extremely easy drink to make. (Remember, I like easy.) I was making these at the table as I was refilling glasses. It isn’t very alcoholic, so you can drink a number of them as you spend time at the table. It has great apple flavor, good spice, and uses one of the most classic American spirits, apple brandy.