Green Your Christmas Cocktails this Holiday Season!
Will you be hosting parties this holiday season? If so, make your drinks and Christmas cocktails green!
No, I’m not talking green beer like St. Patrick’s Day (yeuch), I’m talking eco friendly drinks.
Small Footprints has some great ideas for exactly that, so I’ll repeat them here, with my own comments on what I’m doing to stay green this Christmas.
Let me know in the Comments below what Christmas cocktails you’ll be drinking this year.
Plan an Eco Friendly Bar:
Tip 1 – Wine
Wine is the most Eco-friendly alcoholic beverage. Choose organic varieties which don’t include preservatives. While boxed wine may not look classy, it is the most earth-friendly of wine packaging options. Glass bottles would be the next choice.
Hooray – my favourite tipple, good to know it’s green! Wine will be in my Christmas cocktails of choice again this year. I can’t bring myself to drink boxed wine, but I do recycle all the wine bottles! Very limited choice of organic wines here though, sigh.
Tip 2 – Beer
If you’re serving beer, cans are better than bottles because they weigh less which gives them a lower carbon footprint.
Indeed they are – unless you opt for beer in bottles which you return to the store and get a discount on your next case, which is what happens here. The bottles go back to the brewery and are reused. (I think beer tastes better out of a bottle too; cans give beer a metallic taste, but many of my friends disagree).
Tip 3: Tops
Opt for liquors and wine with natural cork instead of synthetic corks or metal tops.
Good tip for green Christmas cocktails – cork trees are lovely and good for the environment!
Tip 4 – Frost
Avoid frosted bottles. Chemicals are used to create them.
I didn’t know that! I don’t think (don’t really know) there are many frosted bottles on this little island. (I’ve just run to my bar shelf to see if I had any frosted bottles – none, phew!).
Tip 5 – Local and Low Energy
Look for beverages which are distilled locally and check that the company uses minimal energy and water to create their libations.
Great rhum is grown (sugar cane), made and bottled here, and energy is created from the waste – very green – and local rhum makes fabulous tropical Christmas cocktails! Ditto fresh coconuts cut from the trees, no transport involved.
Tip 6 – No disposables
Serve drinks in glass rather than plastic and use glass straws. Use cloth cocktail napkins instead of paper.
I always serve in glass, and rarely use straws. Cloth napkins are always nicer!
Tip 7 – Don’t Forget the Fruits and Munchies
Use local, organic fruits and herbs in mixed drinks. And don’t forget organic “munchies” to go along with the cocktails.
Hmm, that’s a bit more difficult here. Local, certainly – organic, more of a problem. Always trying though.
Tip 8 – Nice Ice
Make ice in an ice tray rather than using the automatic ice maker in the refrigerator. You’ll use less energy.
I’ve never owned a fancy fridge with an ice maker so I didn’t know that, but it makes sense
Plan ahead to ensure that your home bar is “green”.
Will you be using any of these great green tips for Christmas cocktails – or is your home bar already green? Let me know in the Comments below!
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I love all of your takes on the suggested ideas. One reader asked how they can tell, before opening a bottle of wine, if it has a natural or synthetic cork. It was a great question and prompted me to dig deeper and find a way. I came across a wonderful site which lists quite a few wines. Here’s the address: http://recork.org/corkwatch/ Thanks for your post … Cheers!
That website is a great resource for US wines – gosh, what a lot of work it took to set that up! I also used it to learn a little more about US wines too – thanks Small!
My pleasure, Clare! Just curious … were any of the wines, available in your area, listed in that site? I think that as wineries, those using real cork, find out about the site, they submit their information. Hopefully, it will continue to grow and become an excellent resource!