I’ll come out and say it: Here, in the atheist-est part of the nation, the most important part of the holiday season is the food and drink. If you’re in it for the Christmas spirit or the religious euphoria, that’s very nice, and I’m happy for you. But in a sometimes-lonely city of mostly transplants, when weather is doing… what it does this time of year, a nice fatty meal and a boozy drink in hand are more likely to nurture a cold Seattleite’s soul than a production of Handel’s Messiah. Also, frankly, this is one of the nation’s great bar towns, and Seattle industry folks tend to really revel in the holiday drink program as a creative prompt. Even if you don’t drink, the city’s bars are primed to hook you up with some serious seasonal cheer to brighten the drizzliest December day—at flexible booze levels. Check it out. We’re good at this.
Your favorite restaurant and mine, Lenox, is one of the few in Seattle that’s doing coquito this year. Their take on this coconutty Caribbean version of eggnog is made with coconut milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, holiday spices, cacao nibs, and Lenox’s house blend of butterscotchy Bounty gold rum and Planteray’s Three Stars white rum blend. It’s got a lightness to it—all the classic eggnog flavors without the gloppiness. Coquito is served at Lenox’s beautiful bar all month, and it’s also available in N/A 32-ounce bottles to take home and add your own rum to (or not).
Once again this year, the Sitting Room is doing their glamorously elaborate Home Alone cocktails, with a couple updates for 2025. The Battle Plan is their answer to a clarified milk punch, comprising mezcal AND tequila, Nixta Licor de Elote, Pamplemousse Liqueur, Licor 43, cereal-infused milk, grapefruit, lime, bergamot, and winter spices—topped with club soda and oat & hazelnut foam. Also back is Fuller, Go Easy on the Pepsi!—that’s WhistlePig cask-strength six-year rye, cola reduction, Luxardo sour cherry bitters, Ango bitters, and an orange spritz. (The bar actually bought their own barrel from WhistlePig, so it’s a Sitting Room single-barrel exclusive.)
Also on Lower Queen Anne, the crunchy old Streamline Tavern is doing a crazy-deluxe eggnog designed by Seattle’s own president of Chartreuse, Matt Pachmayr (bar manager at Le Coin). This one is giving Sitting Room a run for their money when it comes to sheer fance: Matty’s version has yellow and green Chartreuse, L’Encantada XO Armagnac, Roger Groult three-year Calvados, Foursquare 2011 rum, Worthy Park Single Estate Jamaican rum, eggs, sugar, and cream.
At the Portuguese-influenced Lonely Siren in Pike Place, bartender Grace Dai is hyping the Witching Hour Wassail: pear cider, Pisco, Madeira, cardamom, and clove-spiced pear butter. Owner Brandi Sather is also doing a cookie shot, made with housemade tequila butterscotch schnapps, housemade Irish cream, and housemade maple whip—and a housemade cookie on top. Pair it with a pastel de nata, one of Portugal’s national dishes, made from a recipe by chef Randall Ventura’s grandma, Ana.
At Belltown’s Rob Roy, bar manager JoJo Kitchen has devised a whole holiday drink program, and she’s going all out. Among her crafty cocktails this year are the Run Run Reindeer, which is mulled wine reduction, lemon, prosecco, and aromatic bitters, and I’m also a big fan of the understated Snowball Old-Fashioned, made with rye, gingerbread, aromatic and wormwood bitters, and orange essence. If you’re feeling a little more extra, there are a few other highly festooned drinks on the menu with eight or 10 different ingredients apiece, served in red and green dinosaur-shaped mugs. Kitchen was largely behind Rob Roy’s recent James Beard Award nomination, so you know every single one of these beverages is a real, ahem, tree-topper.
Along with a dozen other Seattle bars, Dark Room is participating in a promotion by ReykjavĂk Spirits, wherein each is assigned a cocktail to serve that contains BrennivĂn, a caraway-flavored aquavit that’s the pride of Iceland. In Icelandic lore, the 13 sons of cannibal troll GrĂ˝la, called the JĂłlasveinar, punish bad children around Yuletide, and each troll child is lending his name to a local cocktail. Dark Room’s serving a drink named for Askasleikir (“Bowl Licker” in English), and it’s got Cocchi Americano, Suze, black lemon bitters, burlesque bitters, and BrennivĂn Special Cask Aquavit, aged in bourbon and sherry casks. I’m sure all the Yule Lad drinks are delicious, but this one has the good stuff—the red-label BrennivĂn—and it’s the one you wanna start with.
The cozy Fireside Room at the Hotel Sorrento is doing a spread of festive drinks to sit with by the hearth. The Sugar & Spice is a fragrant favorite, made with rye, Faretti biscotti liqueur, ginger, orange blossom, and chocolate mole bitters. The Midnight Mistletoe Smooch, with fino sherry, sweet red vermouth, and saffron-scented Meletti Amaro, is another sweet little pick-me-up, and I also love the N/A Santa’s Little Helper: It’s essentially a cherry Italian soda, with Luxardo black cherry syrup, soda water, and a splash of cream.
And at the sultry secret-most bar in the city, legendary bartender Keith Waldbauer is bringing back his signature banana bread old-fashioned to the Doctor’s Office as a last blast before he moves on to more southerly climes. ([Loud stage whisper]: RENTON.) Made with a house rum blend that’s infused with brioche and a crème de banane liqueur by Pairidaēza that reminds me of plantains, plus a bit of Amaro Amorino Riserva from local operation Letterpress Distilling, the BBOF usually sells out immediately, so act fast. Waldbauer will have a batch ready starting December 1. TDO’s also doing their luscious signature eggnog with amontillado sherry and reposado tequila, so you better snag one of those too.
Honorable mention:
For the third year, Queer/Bar has polymorphed into its big X-messy Christmas Dive Bar manifestation, and it’s reportedly bigger, boozier, and merrier than ever. The bar’s serving up an expanded menu of holiday cocktails with names like Butterbeer Fizz, Grinch Martini, and Mistletoe Margarita, alongside nostalgic snacks like meatballs and Lil Smokies. At press time, there were no available details on what these festive cocktails actually contain, but perhaps more than the specifics of the drinks themselves, it’s about the spirit of the Christmassified space itself—and making merry inside of it. If you swing that way.
