What Your New Year’s Eve Drink Should Be

Some New Year’s Eve drinkers just want to celebrate. Whether 2024 was good to you or not, no matter how you feel about what’s to come in 2025, if you’re one of these people who just feels happy to be alive when everyone’s singing “Auld Lang Syne,” try this champagne punch from Damn Delicious. It’s fresh, it’s light, it’s happy — it’s celebration in a glass.

Nobody was safe from the germs that swept through December like that snowstorm in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. If you’re just feeling like yourself again, go easy on your tummy and mix yourself up a classic hot toddy. This simple and delicious recipe from Cookie and Kate will give you all the warm-belly, festive feels.

Done breastfeeding forever? Send a kid off to college? Finally get your toddler to sleep all night in his own bed? I’ll drink to all that and more. If 2024 was full of major parenting milestones for you, you deserve a breather in the form of a cocktail on New Year’s Eve. You made it, and that’s why a classic champagne toast is the cocktail for you. Give yourself a little pat on the back. What a year — you’re doing great.

Listen, the 2024 election was rough. Maybe worse than the 2016 election. And if you’re still feeling all the feels — and hopefully still a little hope mixed in there — it might be time to drink them up. Try making yourself a campfire cocktail. With fireball, rum, and the perfect ombré of pink, orange, and red, it will represent the dumpster fire of the 2024 election with a heavy dose of sweetness for hope and faith.

Lemons are often associated with luck, so finding a cocktail that uses that bright, zesty flavor may be just the way to usher in some good luck for you in 2025. Try making this limoncello spritz from Averie Cooks. It’s light, it’s punchy, and it’s just sweet enough so you can manifest all that good luck energy.

2024 was a major year for Swiftie fans. You got to watch her romance with Travis Kelce blossom, she released The Tortured Poets Department, and you got to see her bring her incredible Eras tour to an end, sealing a major cultural moment for the world. So, you might as well cheers to her and promise to bring some of that energy into 2025 with her favorite drink: the French blonde.

It’s a great, lively gin-and-grapefruit cocktail with some fancy ingredients like St. Germain and lemon bitters that really set it off. You can make a simple version, but as long as you have the gin, grapefruit, and elderflower liqueur, I think you’re in a perfect Swiftie cocktail era.

Rosemary is known for being an herb that can get rid of negative energy, so a hefty dose of it in your New Year’s Eve cocktail may be just the thing to give you a clean slate heading into 2025. I love this rosemary pom spritzer from Pinch of Yum, and you can easily mix in gin or vodka if you’d prefer it to be alcoholic. It’s sweet and bubbly, and the rosemary gives you the perfect savory bite while helping ward off all the ick you’re ready to leave behind in 2024.

It’s me, espresso! Look, not all of us are cut out for drinking and staying up until midnight, but an espresso martini can help. Maybe a Caesar salad to go with it?