A Peppermint Rim Will Take Your Holiday Cocktails To A New Level

The holiday season is all about celebrations, and there's no better way to light up the night than with a festive cocktail or two. If you're tasked with coming up with the drinks for this year's Christmas party, you can make 'em hot or cold, creamy or citrusy, just please don't make your guests sip plain-looking drinks when there's an ultra easy way to make any holiday drink a little more dressed up: Add a peppermint rim to your glasses.

If you're scrolling endlessly through Instagram or TikTok in search of inspiration for the perfect signature cocktail for your holiday shindig, relax and put the phone down because a peppermint rim can make almost any sipper into something seasonal. Peppermint works with a surprisingly wide array of drinks, including coffee and espresso, and an extra edge of crushed candy on a glass gives any cocktail a stylish upgrade. All you need is a bag of red and white peppermint candies or a box of candy canes (if you're not using them to keep the kids quiet), and something sticky like honey or maple syrup.

If you want to make your holiday cocktails really pop this year, don't worry about funny food colorings or mess with fussy garnishes because a peppermint rim will put a bow on just about any Christmas drink. The first step to is to crush up some red-and-white peppermint candy. Put a handful or so in a large Ziplock-style bag and pound the candy with a heavy object until it's all broken up into shards. A meat mallet works great for this job but you can also use the bottom of a heavy sauce pot.

Next, dump the candy out onto a plate with a lip or into a wide-mouthed bowl — any vessel that's wide enough to fit your glassware and that also won't let candy spill out over the sides. In another dish of the same size, pour a few tablespoons of honey or maple syrup, and then dip your glass into the sticky stuff. Make sure to get a thin coating of syrup all the way around the glass, then dip the rim into the dish with the crushed candy. Repeat the dipping process for all your cocktail glasses.

Once you have all your candy rims in place, let the glasses dry for an hour or so. The candy will stick better even when you fill them with drinks, and you won't have to worry about all the candy settling into the bottom of your drinks.

When it comes to drink options for peppermint-rimmed glasses, the sky is sort of the limit. Believe it or not, peppermint pairs well with quite a lot of cocktails, which is probably why you'll see fresh mint in bunches behind any decent cocktail bar. The nice thing about a peppermint-rimmed glass is that it can make almost any cocktail into something Santa approved.

If you're in the mood for minty martinis or highballs, a peppermint rim is perfect with any vodka or gin concoction, and it also pairs well with dark chocolate, Irish cream, mocha, and vanilla flavors. If you're going down more of an old-fashioned egg nog route, mint is definitely yummy with creamy sips like white Russians or horchata-based drinks.

Just because mint is cooling doesn't mean you should limit yourself to only cold drinks, either. A peppermint-rimmed glass is a nice touch with coffee-based after-dinner drinks, or even for mugs of hot cocoa after an afternoon of skiing or sledding. Just be sure to keep enough candy on hand so that you can dip more glasses for a second round, because one holiday cocktail is never enough!