Christmas cocktails add warmth, happiness, and festive colour

It’s a couple of hours before service at Ronin , the Sheung Wan izakaya, and beverage director Elliot Faber is folding washcloths as he chats with a visitor about his favourite holiday drinks.

“Do you [know] Raphael Holzer?” he asks. Holzer is one of the men behind Fernet Hunter, an amaro made in Austria for the Hong Kong market. “His family makes what they call Holzer Tea. They sent it to him from Austria in a recycled Pepsi bottle. We stand outside in the cold, he warms it up and puts in some spices. It’s the best.” That’s exactly what a good Christmas cocktail should evoke: warmth, happiness, a bit of colour in spirit, if not in glass. And luckily for those without a connection to the Holzer family, plenty of Hong Kong bars will serve special winter concoctions this month.

Wan Chai Spanish restaurant The Optimist will ring in the season with the Canela, a blend of Wild Turkey bourbon, cinnamon syrup, red wine and lime juice, topped with egg white and flambéed marshmallows. In Repulse Bay, Limewood’s Rye & Candy brings together rye whiskey, apple chutney, cloudy apple juice, winter spices and pine. The North Pole, at Kennedy Town pizza bar Alvy’s, is the liquid equivalent of a warm blanket, with maple vodka, home-made chocolate syrup, heavy cream and ginger.