This holiday season we're taking the classic gin and tonic and turning it into a snowy winter wonderland. The snow globe gin and tonic is a sophisticated drink that will transport you to a picturesque winter forest, and works equally well with vodka soda or even as a non alcoholic drink using just seltzer. This recipe transforms an everyday wine glass into a beautiful snow globe, complete with a frozen sprig of rosemary standing upright to resemble a tree. Simply fill the glass with gin and tonic, and watch as the bubbles dance around the "snow" and "tree" inside the glass. The snow globe cocktail is the perfect cocktail recipe to enjoy during the holiday parties, or during a cold winter night alone.
Making this holiday cocktail is really simple:
We'll go into each step in more detail, but first we wanted to address some of the main questions we've gotten from people about this snow globe cocktail.
Glass is fine in the freezer as long as certain conditions are met, so make sure to check these boxes before putting the snow globe cocktail into your freezer.
Water expands when it freezes, so filling a container entirely with water with no opening is a recipe for disaster. Thankfully with these we're just putting a little water in the base, and there's an opening at the mouth of the glass so this condition isn't an issue.
The other thing that can cause breakage is rapid temperature change. For example, if you froze these glasses and then poured boiling hot water into them you might have some breakage. For this reason make sure you're using cold water as your tree base, and your tonic water has been in the fridge before adding it into the frozen glass.
Lastly, not all glass is equal. Tempered glass is the safest to freeze, as it doesn't have any of the air-pockets found in non-tempered glass that can expand and contract with temperature fluctuations. You can find tempered glassware anywhere, like these tempered wine glasses on Amazon. Either way, out of an abundance of caution we'd recommend not using any expensive glassware or containers with sentimental value in case something does go wrong.
Yes! If you're worried about your wine glasses being damaged, using plasticware is the safest route to go. There are some beautiful plastic wine and champagne glasses on Amazon (we've used these in other cocktail recipes).
We get that not every freezer is tall enough to git a wine glass vertically, especially during the holidays when we're stocked up for holiday parties! But this gin and tonic looks just as festive in stemless glasses which are much easier to fit into your home freezer. We've also found these stemless glasses have more flattened bases, which is easier for standing up your rosemary tree, so nothing wrong with going stemless!
Getting the rosemary sprig to stand takes a bit of practice. To make this easier there are two main points. The first is to cut the rosemary tree at the right point so the leaves make it easier to stand. Cut the rosemary so it's the leaves that are touching the base of the glass, rather than the wood sprig. These act almost as a tripod and help the sprig to rest vertically in the glass. Secondly, use the right amount of water so the buoyancy lifts the tree a bit. We recommend filling the water 1/3rd of the height of the tree. This will help the tree stand in the snow globe cocktail, while also providing the right amount of ice and structure for the tree when the cocktail is frozen.
No! By freezing water around the tree, this holds the rosemary sprig in place as you enjoy the cocktail while also acting as an ice cube to cool down your drink. By the time you're doing drinking your snow globe gin and tonic, the three should still be frozen in place if you filled 1/3rd of its height with water as the ice cube.
Not really. Since you're pouring the gin and tonic in after the tree has frozen into the glass, the part of the cocktail you're actually drinking wasn't exposed to the rosemary during the 2 hour freezing process. While it looks great, the fact that your gin and tonic is only exposed to the rosemary sprig for as long as it takes you to drink makes it so it really just tastes like whatever you pour into the cocktail, rather than rosemary.
