Bourbon Cranberry Cocktail

Once autumn rolls around, I pick up a bottle of cranberry juice and some ginger ale, and we start making this 3-ingredient Bourbon Cranberry Cocktail on repeat.

Alex and I drink a lot of bourbon cocktails, but this is our go-to cold weather one. The cranberry juice screams holiday to me, like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If your cranberry juice is on the tart side, you get the slight tannic notes of a Manhattan, without the winey flavor. Ginger ale gives the drink sweetness and fizz.

It's festive but simple. It's fancier than a usual spirit + soda cocktail, but still easy enough to just pour and drink on a Tuesday evening.

If you like this drink, you'll also enjoy its warm weather cousin, the Bourbon Cherry Crush.

Key Ingredients

Cranberry juice is what makes this cocktail special. While the original cocktail took 100% cranberry juice, that's too tart for us.

I don't like added sugar, so I use a cranberry juice blend that is 100% juice. The first juice listed should be cranberry juice. If it's another juice like grape juice, the juice will be too sweet, and the drink, bland.

Ginger ale is the mixer for this. We only drink diet soda, so we use diet ginger ale. The original recipe took ginger beer, but I misread the ingredients while I shopped and bought ginger ale instead. We liked it this way.

Bourbon is the spirit of choice in the Konkel household, ever since Alex and I went on an anniversary trip to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail (back when it was small). While we appreciate the nice stuff, you don't need anything too fancy here.

I tend to use a mixing bourbon, like your standard Evan Williams or Jim Beam. Something not too expensive. You can save your nicer bourbon and whiskey for your old-fashioned cocktails.

That said, your choice of bourbon or whiskey makes a big difference to the drink.

With a smooth bourbon like Four Roses (which I've used in Bourbon Balls), the drink is mellow; if you use a more assertive one, like the Elijah Craig we had in the house, the drink is more bourbon-forward. Rye-forward bourbons like Wild Turkey will be spicier and more assertive than wheated bourbons like Maker's Mark.

How to Make Bourbon Cranberry Cocktail

Fill your glass with ice. Mix together (or don't mix!) bourbon and cranberry juice, and then top with ginger ale.

That's right! No juicing citrus, no shaking. Just pour and drink.

Variations

This cocktail is based on the Bourbon Cranberry Fizz that I saw on Gimme Some Oven. That recipe called for 100% cranberry juice, and ginger beer.

100% cranberry juice is expensive, and will make for a much more tart drink.

When I first made this drink 7 years ago, I misread ginger beer and bought ginger ale instead. We preferred it that way and never looked back.

Ginger ale is a sweet but slightly spicy soda. Ginger beer is much spicier. We tried it once with ginger beer, and the drink was entirely different - with the gingery bite of a Dark and Stormy or a Moscow Mule.

If you swap out the bourbon for rum, you'd end up with a cranberry Dark and Stormy, which I've never tried but now I want to.

More Bourbon & Whiskey

I hope this becomes a recipe you'll return to. If you try it, a star rating below helps others find it - and I'd love to hear how yours turns out in the comments! 💕 Questions or trouble? Drop a note, and I'll do my best to help.