Leftover Cocktails

The fridge is stuffed from Thanksgiving and so are you. The festivities are over and for the foreseeable future there’s only turkey and more turkey. If you don’t wake up now you’re about to slip into a weekend-long food coma, which makes it the perfect time for an age-old digestion aid: cocktails.

Because the body is busy digesting “the mind is depleted of extra blood flow and oxygen and wants to shut down and sleep,” says Dushan Zaric, Liquor.com advisor and co-owner of New York City bars Employees Only and Macao Trading Co. “We need to perk it up with sugar, caffeine and distilled spirits.”

Zaric’s post-Thanksgiving cure-all is the Fernando, a combination of the bitter liqueur Fernet-Branca, the sweetened vermouth Cinzano Bianco and the vanilla- and herbal-flavored liqueur Galliano. The rich drink should both revive you and settle your stomach.

To wash down the pounds of leftover poultry, try Zaric’s Ginger Smash. The cocktail features a number of seasonal favorites—cranberries, ginger, apple cider—and its crispness and spice should help stimulate your appetite and cut the richness of heavy holiday foods. Can we get you some more pumpkin pie?

Fernando

Created by: Dushan Zaric and Jason Kosmas

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.25 oz Fernet-Branca
• 1.75 oz Cinzano Bianco Vermouth (can substitute 1.5 oz of a different Italian vermouth)
• .75 oz Galliano

Garnish: Top of a mint stalk

Glass: Cocktail

PREPARATION:

Pour all the ingredients into a mixing glass. Add large cold ice cubes and stir for 40 revolutions. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the top of a mint stalk.

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Ginger Smash

Created by: Dushan Zaric and Jason Kosmas

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Thin slices of fresh gingerroot
• 9-10 Fresh whole cranberries
• 2 Demitasse spoons of sugar
• 1.5 oz Plymouth Gin
• 1.5 oz Apple cider
• .75 oz Fresh lemon juice

Garnish: Grated cinnamon

Glass: Rocks

PREPARATION:

Muddle ginger, cranberries and sugar in the bottom of a shaker. Add the rest of the ingredients and enough ice to fill a rocks glass. Cover and shake hard but briefly. Pour the mixture, including ice, into a rocks glass. Garnish with grated cinnamon.

Dushan Zaric is co-owner of popular New York City bars Employees Only and Macao Trading Co.