Cranberry Margaritas

Enjoy a fresh and festive cranberry margarita in minutes! This easy-to-follow recipe will have you sipping on a delicious cranberry margarita throughout the holiday season.

With the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and tangy flavors, it’s a great way to celebrate.

Make This Your Signature Cocktail This Year

I’m all about celebrating the holidays with special cocktails made with seasonal ingredients like cranberries.

When you welcome your friends and family with something as pretty and festive as this cocktail, they’ll feel all that more special.

Cranberry Margarita Ingredients

• Silver Tequila – It’s important to use a good brand of liquor for cocktails. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive but the quality does make a difference in the taste. It is best to buy something that is priced between the least and most expensive.
• Triple Sec – Triple Sec is an orange-flavored liqueur. Cointreau is a brand of triple sec that is also very popular in margaritas. I prefer to use Cointreau; however, it is more expensive than Triple Sec.
• Cranberry Juice – Use either cranberry juice or cranberry juice cocktail. I usually have a bottle of cranberry juice cocktail on hand during the holidays.
• Fresh Lime Juice
• Salt
• Cranberries and Rosemary for Garnish

Let’s Make Cranberry Margaritas

• Pour the coarse salt onto a plate.
• Rub the rim of the cocktail glass with lime.
• Dip the glass into the salt.
• Fill the glass with ice.
• Pour in the ingredients in this order: tequila, triple sec, lime juice, cranberry juice.
• Stir.
• Garnish with sugar cranberries, lime, and rosemary.

It’s all about the Garnish

I don’t think you can make a festive cocktail without a festive garnish. After all, it is the holiday season and everything is a little more dressed up.

For this cocktail, I used fresh lime slices and sugar cranberries, and I also made fresh sugared rosemary sprigs.

How To Make Sugared Cranberries

The quickest way to learn how to make sugared cranberries is to click here for my Sugared Cranberry Recipe. Or follow the steps below:

1. Make a simple syrup with equal parts of sugar and water.
2. Divide the simple syrup into two tall jars and soak the fresh berries in one jar and rosemary in another overnight.
3. The next day, toss both the berries and rosemary in a bowl full of granulated sugar. Remove them from the sugar bowl, place them on parchment paper, and let them dry for several hours.
4. You can store them in an airtight jar for a week.

Don’t Forget to Salt The Rim

As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have a real margarita if you don’t have salt.

A salted rim is just like a garnish – a little something to dress it up and make it special.

It’s very easy to salt the rim of a cocktail glass. Simply pour some sea salt onto a plate. Rub the rim of the glass with the fruit. In this case, I used lime. And finally, dip the rim of the glass into the salt.

KKM Tip: Be sure to salt the rim before the ice is added.

Krazy Kitchen Mom Tips

• In this recipe, the word “shot” is a standard shot glass. A standard shot glass is actually 1-1/2 ounces.
• If you don’t have a shot glass, measure the 1 shot to be 1-1/2 ounces.
• A 1-1/2 ounce shot glass is also called a “jigger”.
• My Dad taught me the proper way to make a cocktail:
  • Add the ice to the glass.
  • Next, add the liquor or liquor on top of the ice. He said this cools down the liquor so the ice won’t melt as quickly.
  • Thirdly, add the mix which is usually cooled already.
  • Garnish the cocktail.

More KKM Holiday Cocktails

1. Cranberry Sage Martini – Cranberry juice, vodka, fresh sage, and orange zest
2. Scarlet O’Hara – My favorite holiday cocktail! It’s made with Southern Comfort, lime juice, and cranberry juice.
3. Red Wine Hot Chocolate – Curl up with a warm mug of hot chocolate with hints of red wine flavor. It’s heaven!
4. Red Wine Mule – A Mule cocktail made with Cranberry juice.