Cocktail Time: Cranberry Cosmopolitans

My signature cocktail is a cranberry cosmopolitan. As girly as it gets. And it wouldn’t be a girls weekend without one – or, ahem, two.

A couple of weeks ago, my annual girls weekend commenced with my sister, sister-in-law and cousin. Instead of staying at a hotel somewhere (which, don’t get me wrong, is always fun), we stayed at my house, where we enjoyed catching up on our lives, lots of laughter, shopping, good food, and – I’m sure you’ve got this one – my cranberry-pomegranate cosmopolitans.

Friday night began with my best-ever turkey lasagna served on these china plates, which I had purchased years ago at an antique store (an absolute steal!) during another girls weekend. I have decided I don’t use these pretty china plates enough.

Did I mention our girls’ time together included plenty of laughter? Like these socks, for instance, that we found in the Good Things store in Maple Grove. For some reason, everyone thought I should buy them.

Or our fortunes from the fortune cookies at P.F. Chang’s. (Mmmm … lettuce wraps and crab wontons!) I’ll let you in on a secret: we each read our fortune aloud and followed it with the words, “under the sheets.” Remember doing that as a teenager? I mean, how juvenile, right? And we loved every minute of it – to the point of belly laughs and tears!

And finally, this fun plate, also at Good Things:

Which leads me back to my cranberry cosmopolitans. Don’t they look fabulous?

Here’s the recipe – including my best tip:

Cranberry Cosmopolitans

• 1 ounce Vodka (you can use top shelf stuff, but this drink works just as well with Smirnoff’s, trust me)
• 1/2 ounce Triple Sec (I much prefer Bols versus any other brand of Triple Sec – it’s the best and because my local liquor store doesn’t carry it, I special order it, which sounds fancy but it’s not expensive)
• 1/2 ounce Ocean Spray 100% Cranberry Juice
• 1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice (about half full). Add all ingredients and shake. Pour into martini glasses and enjoy!

The recipe above makes one cocktail. Plan to double, triple or even quadruple your recipe, depending on how many you want to make at one time.

My best tip: the key to this cocktail is to freshly squeeze your limes – it truly makes a difference. (You can also use pomegranate-cranberry juice which is just as delicious!)