Say cheer’s with this brilliant bright red colored Cranberry margarita, a perfect Christmas and New year drink. The vibrant bright red color is so stunning to look at it. The drink has a perfect balance of sweet, tart and totally refreshing. This holiday drink is made with fresh homemade cranberry juice, orange liqueur, tequila and lime juice – a combination that is fit for any party.

Refreshing cranberry margarita
Easy to make, made from scratch and is bursting with full of flavors. The color of the drink is so stunning to look, you won’t be able to resist it.
A perfect drink to kick start holiday mood or any celebrations. For Thanksgiving gatherings to Christmas holidays, for New year’s eve party to girls margarita night party, for valentine’s day celebration drink to relaxing weekend drink, this margarita is perfect for any occasion.
What you’ll need
To make fresh cranberry juice –
- 2 cups fresh cranberries
- ¼ cup water
- â…“ cup sugar
To make cranberry margarita-
- 2 cup fresh cranberry juice
- 4 tablespoon lime juice
- ¾ cup tequila
- ½ cup fresh orange juice
- ½ cup orange-flavored liqueur Cointreau or Triple Sec
- Ice cubes
Garnish –
- Fresh cranberries
- Lime wedges
- Sugared cranberries
- Rosemary sprig
- Ice cubes
- Margarita salt or Sugar
Made from scratch
There are two ways – one exacting the juice from fresh berries and second making a cranberry syrup to make margarita
Using fresh homemade juice gives you the best tasting margaritas. Feel free to use store bought packaged juice from carton if you want to speed things up.
Into a juicer, throw in fresh cranberries and juice it. Making your own cranberry juice from scratch won’t take much time. Balancing the tartness of the cranberries is done with sugar or any sweetener.
Puree fresh cranberries and squeeze the heck out of them through a strainer. Then add sugar accordingly to balance out the tartness of fresh cranberries.
Alternatively ….
Into a sauce pan add cranberries, sugar and water. Bring it to boil. After 8 to 10 minutes cranberries will turn soft. Mash it a little and turn off flame.
Allow the cranberry juice to cool a little. Then strain off using fine mesh sieve and squeeze out as much juice as you can.
Let cranberry juice cool down completely before using it in margarita.
If you can’t make your own cranberry juice, use the store-bought-cranberry juice. Recommend you to use brand that is 100% juice). It’s easy to make, convenient and tastes GOOD too!
How to make cranberry margaritas
- To fresh cranberry juice (or store bought juice) squeeze in lime juice.
- Into the cocktail shaker add ice cubes, cranberry juice with lime, fresh orange juice, orange flavored liqueur, silver tequila, Shake well until all ingredients blends well.
- In a small wide bowl, mix margarita salt and caster sugar (not powdered sugar, sugar with fine crystals).
- Take a lime wedge and run it around the rim of the glass in which you want to serve cranberry margarita. Dip rim of the glass in salt sugar mix and make sure it coats evenly around the rim.
- Drop a few ice cubes into the serving glasses.
- Pour cranberry cocktail into the serving glasses.
- Garnish with few fresh cranberries, a lime wedge and serve and sugared cranberries over rosemary sprig.
How to serve cranberry margaritas
The traditional way to serve any margarita is to have a coarse salt around the rim of margarita glasses. We don’t want to skip any traditions here, so yes we can add our own little twist to the traditions.
Margarita salt and caster sugar together makes it great as well. If you don’t have margarita salt, use regular coarse salt.
Serve cranberry margaritas in glass wares.
New Year’s Eve Menu Ideas
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Cranberry Margarita
Ingredients
To make fresh cranberry juice –
- 2 cups fresh cranberries
- ¼ cup water
- â…“ cup sugar
To make cranberry margarita-
- 2 cup fresh cranberry juice
- 4 tablespoon lime juice
- ¾ cup tequila
- ½ cup fresh orange juice
- ½ cup orange-flavored liqueur Cointreau or Triple Sec
- Ice cubes
Garnish –
- Fresh cranberries
- Lime wedges
- Sugared cranberries
- Rosemary sprig
- Ice cubes
- Margarita salt or regular coarse salt and caster sugar to coat the rim of serving glasses
Instructions
- To make cranberry margaritas, first rim the ridge of your serving glass with a lime wedge and dip in margarita salt.
- Fill the glass with ice cubes.
- In a cocktail shaker, combine cranberry juice, freshly squeezed orange juice, triple sec, tequila, lime juice with ice cubes. Shake for about 30 seconds.
- Pour over ice and squeeze in lime slices.
- Garnish with sugared cranberries, lime wedges.
Comments & Reviews
Sam | Ahead of Thyme says
This drink looks so festive and perfect for a holiday party! I don’t drink but sharing this when friends who would love it.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you
Claire | The Simple, Sweet Life says
If I’m going to drink, margarita’s are my go-to choice. I bet the cranberry makes it extra fresh with the perfect twist of tartness. Definitely going to have to give this a try!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Claire
Lorie says
Seeing this post NYE but I’m still excited to partake in this cocktail this weekend!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you
Kiki Johnson says
I am with Gloria on this cocktail being perfect for Valentine’s Day with that gorgeous bright red color! I love me a good Margarita and always go for all the crazy flavors while hubby tends to stick to the classics. Let’s see if I can convince him to share a round of these with me!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Kiki. I love classic margarita as well, but variations never fail to excite me as well. So yea
Lauren says
I’ve never made my own cranberry juice before! That sounds so interesting, I bet it’s great with the tequila and the fresh orange juice.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Lauren
Jessica says
Margarita is one of my favorite drink but I usually drink it only in summer. This is a perfect variation with a more winter flavor (and great festive look!), I can’t wait to try it!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Jessica
Tammy says
I love that you made fresh cranberry juice…you’ve gone all out with this! Beautiful cocktail for the season!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Tammy. Yes I has fresh cranberries and decided to do my own juice.
georgie says
I made a similar recipe over Christmas and loved it! The colors are so beautiful and it was so, so festive!!! This looks so yummy, I can never turn down a margarita!
jyothirajesh says
thank you Georgie
Kelly Anthony says
The color on these is gorgeous! It’s like Cosmo meets Margarita — so fun!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Kelly. Glad you like it
Charity says
That’s quite a New Years Eve menu! Traditionally my family has always made steamed shrimp, but we’ll have to add these cranberry margaritas next year!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you
Gloria says
This is so pretty. I would love this for brunch on the winter weekends. In fact, the colour is also perfect for Valentine’s Day too. I always have cranberries in the freezer. I love to use them all year long.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Gloria
Karly says
This cocktail is gorgeous! I love any kind of margarita!
jyothirajesh says
Me too, love margarita
Veena Azmanov says
Oh we had cranberry margarita for New Year celebration yesterday and it was so refreshing. I love cranberries and this sounds so delicious. Think I will be having a few of these this year.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Veena
Marisa Franca says
The drink is beautiful! Just looking at it makes me think of festivities and people gathering around and sipping on a delicious cocktail. I can’t believe you made your own cranberry juice. I bet it tastes so much better. I’m going to make sure I have these ingredients so I can duplicate your recipe.
jyothirajesh says
Thank you Marisa
Jeannette (Jay Joy) says
This does seem like a perfect drink for the holidays. Although your kids didn’t dig the mocktails, I think they would have been a hit with my tween and her friends.
jyothirajesh says
I absolutely love watermelon drinks. Thank you
Noel Lizotte says
I love how fancy these look, but yet they’re so simple to make! Talk about really dressing up the holiday table – I don’t care if these are only on the table long enough for people to claim for the toast… they’re beautiful!
and LOL @ kids only drinking Coke!
jyothirajesh says
Kids do enjoy just coke nothing else. Thank you
Cheese Curd In Paradise says
I love that you made your own cranberry juice! These sounds absolutely delicious!
jyothirajesh says
Thank you,