This post was created in partnership with Absolut. Enjoy responsibly!
Tis the season for creamy-sweet Cinnamon White Russians! 🎄
Preferably shared with friends, at a Christmas party, around a tree and a collection of white elephant gifts that will make you laugh until you cry. Or at least that’s how we do it.
The reason for Cinnamon White Russians this weekend: it’s been at least five years in the making now that we’ve hosted an annual Christmas party for our friends, and today is our big party day! It started as a reunion of friends from high school (Bjork and I are that half-sweet, half-annoying couple who went to high school together and share basically all of our friends because of it) but it has kind of morphed into a one-big-happy-family party where we invite people from any and all friendship groups with just one long-standing rule:
You HAVE TO bring a white elephant gift.
Like, we’re sending you away if you don’t have some kind of shady-looking present in your hands when you show up at the door.
We’ve hosted the party in some pretty small spaces (first in our 1,000-square foot condo and now in our second even more mighty 900-square foot house) but this year we are getting spacious, adultish, and posh meets hipster with our location choice.
Yassss – we are bringing the party to the new studio. 👠‼️
When I think of it, I imagine myself and all my friends in cocktail dresses and heels, or suits and ties, or whatever it is the fancy people in movies wear to parties? I don’t know. And in my vision, we are all standing around fancy appetizer tables, drinks in one hand and holiday cookies in the other, girls touching up our lipstick between sips, and everyone laughing polite and properly, like good party-going fancies.
And then when I think of it IN REAL LIFE, I remember that while there were a few adorable dresses that made appearances last year, for the most part, we are all there with just a few main goals which include eating, giving and receiving the best possible white elephant gift, and laughing until our faces hurt.
So I guess we are more THAT kind of party people.
This year at our party, you may or may not find me with a shaker in hand and these fun little ice cube guys in the other, making these little sweet and creamy fancy sippers for my friends to honor it being the first year for our Christmas party in the studio.
What I love about this drink:
- It tastes so, so good. It basically IS dessert. I mean, you don’t have to make it dessert if you don’t want it so sweet, but as written, it’s sweet and delicious and drinkable. And you’ll need to be careful. Which leads me to #2.
- Don’t like cinnamon? I’m going to choose to overlook the fact that you’re a Christmas grinch and tell you that it’s NBD – just switch out the flavor of the syrup for something more your style. We also liked a minty simple syrup in these.
- It uses classic Absolut vodka which conveniently is showing up this season in these way-too-fun silver and electric blue Electrick bottles that add to the party experience. The other night when we had them sitting out on our counter in all their festive glory with White Christmas playing in the background, Bjork said: it’s almost like you don’t need to decorate for Christmas. WINNING. They are in stores through the holiday season! Go forth.
- As a general rule, these Cinnamon White Russians elevate the party status to a sparkly-fun level while still being 👌👌👌 for the down-to-earth-ness of our party and our people.
Simple. Decadent. Party perfection.
Cheers! *clinking all around*
A WORD ABOUT THE ICE CUBE SITUATION:
For the sphere ice cubes (which several of you have asked about in the comments and which are a MUST for this recipe – so darn cute and fancy), I use these Zoku molds: http://amzn.to/2eHEdNZ
However, at the moment they are showing up on Amazon at $40-some dollars for the set (definitely not what I paid for them and definitely not what you should be paying for them, either). If they go down in price, get those ones. I love them.
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Cinnamon White Russian
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: makes about 3 cups simple syrup, and as many drinks as you want 1x
Description
This Cinnamon White Russian is a perfect holiday party drink! with just four ingredients – vodka, coffee liquor, cinnamon simple syrup, and cream.
Ingredients
Cinnamon Simple Syrup:
- 3 cups water
- 3 cups granulated sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
Cinnamon White Russian:
- large ice cubes
- 4 parts Absolut vodka
- 3 parts coffee liquor
- 3 parts cinnamon simple syrup
- 2 parts cream (okay, fine, a little extra won’t hurt)
Instructions
- Make the Cinnamon Simple Syrup: Heat the water, sugar, and cinnamon sticks over medium high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Simmer longer for more cinnamon taste.
- Make the Cinnamon White Russian: Place an ice cube in each glass. Add ingredients in order listed. Swirl before and after adding the cream to get everything mixed together real nice. You can also mix the drink in a shaker with ice cubes to chill it faster.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 5 mins
- Category: Beverage
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: cinnamon white russian, white russian, christmas cocktail
This post was created in partnership with Absolut!
This post also contains affiliate links for those cute ice cube molds on Amazon.
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of favorite drink recipes. Check it out!
This would go wonderfully at my family Christmas! Love that cinnamon syrup!
Thanks Katrina! 😀
Although my husband and I are not high school sweethearts, we also went to high school together and have many of the same friends or can at least tell funny stories about people we knew. 🙂
Isn’t that the best? I love it.
Are those circle ice cubes? They look great! How do you make them?
Yes! I just added links right above the recipe! 😀 thanks for the reminder.
This sounds like the perfect Christmas party drink! Love those Absolut bottles, too, really neat looking!
Aren’t they pretty? I love how shiny they are!
Gah, this sounds perfect! Please have an extra one for me, pregnancy has cut out my drinking. One more month! I LOVE cinnamon and coffee liquor so I’m gonna bet this is delicious. I’ll look forward to trying this at a later date.
PS. Congrats on the Tea Ring success! What a great feeling 🙂
Will do! Thank you Lauren and congratulations on your pregnancy! 🙂 how exciting!
Yum! I love white Russians. The addition of cinnamon sounds amazing! Beautiful photos! Also your party sounds like a lot of fun!
My wife loves White Russians. Can’t wait to surprise her with this. Stunning photos!
Enjoy, Jimi!
OMG! I love cinnamon, and I have THE BEST Vietnamese cinnamon chips, and I just bought a bottle of Kahlua yesterday. I usually don’t have alcohol in my house because I don’t drink that much, but something just made me do it. Maybe it’s that festive spirit thing you mention in your post. In any case… I’m getting me some vodka and making these! White Russians are one of my very favorite mixed drinks… and with cinnamon added… OMG… why didn’t I think of that? Thank you!
Enjoy, Donna!
It’s not food… it’s art! Amazing!
Woohoo! The Zoku molds you recommend are $19.99 on Amazon TODAY! Yippeeeee!
Now down to $16.99 on Amazon 🙂
Ooooh I love the idea of making my own simple syrup. So sophisticated 🙂 And I’m so curious to know what qualifies as weird enough to count as a white elephant gift, by the way!
Lindsay, White Russians are my favorite! They are one of the only drinks that I actually enjoy the taste of! and what kind of person doesn’t like cinnamon? It’s my favorite spice!
I hope you have a great Christmas party! Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you, Heather!
My kind of drink, I love it! And that cinnamon makes it extra cozy for the holidays too! 🙂
Agreed, Roxana!
Just made these… so amazingly delicious! My husband and I had just been talking about getting some horchata because we needed a hearty dose of cinnamon when I saw this post this morning and BAM we were enthralled. We are just ever so slightly obsessed with cinnamon and also happen to love White Russians. So, so highly recommend this!! Thanks for the recipe!
Hope you like it, Lisa!
I totally got into White Russians last month! Was on my first cruise and asked the bartender for something with Frangelica. He recommend a White Russian. It was fantastic. It was something like 1/2 part kahlua, and equal parts everything else. At least that’s what I think he used. Either-way, its amazing, i’ve had a few in the last month at my in-laws. OMG!
– Kahlua
– Baileys
– Frangelica
– Vodka
– Cream
Amazing!!
Merry Christmas,
Brian
Sounds delicious, Brian!
Homemade simple syrup is so much better than the store bought. I like the idea of cinnamon.
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
If there are any crafty hipster people amongst your readers: you can also make round ‘ball’ ice cubes by filling up water balloons, freezing them and then cutting away the balloon. You can see it here on pinterest:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/99642210481938171/
Awesome idea, Britt!
This could be great for the holidays. Nice post!
Thanks, Lisa!
Definitely my kind of party and my kind of drink! I love White Elephant gifts because you just never know what’s going to show up!
WOW! Does this ever look good!
Thanks, Chels!
I think this is the same as Leche de painter (in Spanish), isn’t it?
It’s tastes AMAZIIIIING, thank you for this recipe, I will try it at a Christmas Table on Friday 🙂
Not sure about the Spanish drink – but it’s definitely delicious!
Update: The Zoku ice cube trays come up as $16.99 for me right now. 🙂
Thanks, Meagan!
Ok I have loved you and Pinch of Yum for so long, but I’ve been quietly stalking from the bushes until the cuteness of these drinkies made me come out of hiding. I ADORE YOU AND CAN WE PLEASE BE BESTIES… (way to be cool, Adwoa, dang) xo
Zomgosh. We had my good friend over for dinner last night. As we’d all skipped seeing each other over the holidays, this was our catch-up time. We decided on trying the cinnamon white Russian ahead of time, so my husband ran out to a hyper-local, wanky-doo distillery here to pick up coffee liqueur and house vodka as I made the cinnamon syrup. Let me just say…this is POTENT. We had difficulties hanging on to any logic whatsoever, which we sorely needed for our usual Catan game binge. It was hilarious. Next time, we won’t be as generous with it. However…it is extremely delicious, and we enjoyed adding a splash of the cinnamon syrup to our coffee this morning. Nom. (One of these days we’ll try your mint variation!)
Glad you liked it!
This looks so good! I love white russians!