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These Thanksgiving cocktails and drinks celebrate the flavors of the season! These are our most popular drinks starring apple cider, pomegranate, and cranberry and more.

Thanksgiving sangria in glass
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Thanksgiving is full of traditions, and we’re all about the signature drink being one of them. As two cocktail experts, Alex and I love to create a fun drink each year to add a sparkle to the meal. Here’s a list we created of our top Thanksgiving cocktails for celebrating the holiday in style!

These Thanksgiving drinks feature the flavors of fall, starring apple cider, pomegranate, cranberry, bourbon, and infusing cozy spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves. Our signature drinks for Thanksgiving 2024 are Thanksgiving Sangria and the Apple Cider Spritz—find all the recipes below!

Thanksgiving cocktails and drinks

Want to search by liquor? Try our Fall Bourbon Cocktails or Fall Vodka Cocktails.

Nonalcoholic Thanksgiving drinks

Don’t drink alcohol or want something for the kids? There are lots of great options for Thanksgiving drinks that aren’t cocktails! Here are some of our top fall drinks that work when entertaining:

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Thanksgiving Sangria (& More Cocktails!)

Thanksgiving Sangria in glass with fruit and spice garnish
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5 from 3 reviews

This Thanksgiving sangria is a festive cocktail for serving to a crowd! Made with red wine and spiced simple syrup, it’s infused with cozy, fruity flavor. Making up a pitcher is our pick for a fun holiday drink!

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Chill Time: 1 hour
  • Cook Time: 0 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
  • Yield: 8 1x
  • Category: Drink
  • Method: Pitcher
  • Cuisine: Cocktails
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale

For the spiced simple syrup (see Notes)

  • 3 cinnamon sticks
  • 2 whole cloves
  • 1 star anise
  • ¼ cup water
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • 1 orange, juiced (about ⅓ cup juice)

For the sangria

  • 1 green apple, sliced
  • 1 red apple, sliced
  • 1 lemon, sliced
  • 750 ml bottle fruity, full-bodied red wine (we prefer a Crianza from the Rioja region of Spain)
  • ⅓ cup triple sec or Cointreau
  • For garnish: pomegranate arils, more chopped fruit, whole spices

Instructions

  1. In a small saucepan over medium low heat, toast the cinnamon sticks, cloves, and star anise for 3 minutes until fragrant. Reduce the heat to low. Add the water, sugar and fresh orange juice, and simmer for 3 minutes, stirring gently to dissolve the sugar.
  2. Strain the sugar mixture into a large pitcher. Stir in the wine and triple sec, adding the whole spices from the sugar mixture. Add the chopped fruit and stir. Refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours before serving. Taste, and adjust sweetness by adding additional simple syrup if desired (here’s how to make simple syrup).
  3. To serve, pour the sangria into ice-filled glasses, garnished with more sliced fruit, lemon wedges, and if desired, pomegranate arils and whole spices. 

Notes

If you prefer a very sweet sangria, consider making a double batch of the spiced syrup. Add half to the pitcher to start, then taste and add more to taste.

You can make Thanksgiving sangria up to 4 hours in advance, but longer storage makes the fruit become soggy and discolored. You can make the spiced simple syrup up to 1 week in advance. If you want to make the pitcher in advance, you can mix up everything but the fruit and refrigerate, then add the fruit 1 to 4 hours before serving.

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More Thanksgiving recipes

We’ve got a full suite of Thanksgiving resources to help you plan for this holiday! Whether it’s mains, sides, appetizers, or desserts: we’ve got you covered! Here are a few lists of recipes:

About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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3 Comments

  1. Sabrina says:

    a great checklist, which cocktails haven’t my guests had recently? Even after Thanksgiving it works well for the whole holiday season, so thank you






  2. Bisrat Abraha says:

    It was very helpful for me to prepare a cocktail list for my upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner at my restaurant. Since we are having apples, cranberry and pumpkins on the set menu, why not pair it up with some of the apple, cranberry and pumpkin drinks.

    Thanks a lot!






  3. Sonja Overhiser says:

    Let us know if you have any questions!