It’s the holiday season, so I decided to try a twist on the Dark and Stormy that I found in HyVee’s December issue of Seasons magazine. Here’s what you need to make it:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

5 whole cloves

5 gingersnap cookies

1/2 cup ice

4 ounces Captain Morgan Gingerbread Spiced Rum

1-ounce fresh lime juice

6 ounces ginger beer 

Here’s the recipe as it was written in the magazine: The first thing you have to do is make a spiced simple syrup. Combine the sugar, water and cloves in a small saucepan. Bring to boiling, stirring until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove pan from heat and let steep for five minutes; discard cloves and allow to cool. Crush the gingersnap cookies in a sandwich bag and place them on a small plate (I use a rolling pin to crush them really fine, but you can use your hands or the back of a large spoon, too). Dip the rims of two highball glasses in the simple syrup, then dip in the crushed gingersnaps to coat the rim, set aside. Add ice cubes, rum, lime juice and 1/4 ounce simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Cover and shake well. Pour into prepared glasses. Top each drink with three ounces of ginger beer.

I like this drink because it feels festive and it looks pretty, but it does feel a little light compared to a traditional Dark and Stormy. The gingerbread spiced rum is thirty percent alcohol, compared to forty percent in dark rum, so the drink lacks a bit of bite. I ended up adding about an ounce of dark rum to the finished drink, then I thought it was perfect. My husband found it heavy on the lime juice, so you might want to start with half an ounce instead of the full ounce called for in the recipe if the flavor of lime tends to stick out to you, too. How you decide to alter the recipe is up to you. Overall, I thought this recipe was a good jumping-off point for making an excellent holiday cocktail.