• Business Insider asked award-winning bartenders what their favorite cocktails are right now.
• Eggnog, mulled wine, and hot toddies are classic winter cocktails for a good reason.
• Simple twists on classic cocktails like old-fashioneds and Sazeracs give them extra pizzazz.

There's no better way to survive the holidays than with a festive cocktail.

Business Insider asked award-winning bartenders from around the world to share their favorite cocktails right now — and what makes them so seasonally special.

You can't go wrong with an old-fashioned.

Tiffanie Barriere — a Tastemakers of the South award winner and cocktail educator with a heavy focus on Black culture — sticks to the classics.

"I'm still a sucker for an old-fashioned," she said. The cocktail is a sipper, not a chugger, so it's great for longer holiday gatherings.

At its core, an old-fashioned only needs three ingredients (bourbon or rye whiskey, water, and bitters), though sugar and orange are often included in basic recipes.

There are also countless ways to remix the drink. Barriere recommends trying different concoctions with things like peach preserves, apple butter, and pumpkin puree. She's even had an old-fashioned made with zucchini soup broth — the possibilities are really endless.

Winter weather calls for hot toddies.

Deniseea Head, a cocktail consultant and storyteller, won VinePair's educator of the year award in 2023 for her work in the drink industry.

Her wintertime staple is a hot toddy. The drink typically calls for hot water, whiskey, lemon, honey, and spices, and she grew up drinking virgin versions on the rare occasion that the temperature dipped in Los Angeles.

"It's festive, warm, and I feel like it's lowkey healing," Head told BI.

Along with her personal connection to this drink, the history of the hot toddy also resonates with her work in connecting cocktails with Black American culture.

"The hot-toddy recipe, in my opinion, has been passed down as somewhat of a cure within the African American culture, specifically because we haven't always had access to things we need," she said.

Daddy Long Legs, another successful bartender who recently placed third in Tales of the Cocktail's Most Imaginative Bartender awards, has similar praise for the hot drink.

The bartender would also love to see people take the cocktail one step further by incorporating soups and broths.

"Personally, I'm brewing an idea for a chicken-noodle-soup hot toddy," they told BI.

Lastly, the simple cocktail is easy to make in big batches, which is perfect for holiday parties and events.

A Sazerac is a lesser-known classic.

Heriberto Mandez, the bar manager at Restaurant Good Luck and a finalist at the 2024 Rochester Cocktail Revival festival, likes to add a little theatrical flair to cocktails to liven up the holiday season.

His favorite drink is a take on a classic Sazerac — a cocktail made with whiskey, bitters, sugar, absinthe, and a citrus garnish. Mandez elevates the drink by caramelizing the absinthe and using a split base of rye whiskey and brandy to pay homage to the cocktail's French and American history.

When everything is assembled, he also lights the cocktail on fire — a fun way to start a conversation at a party or just add a little brightness to the end of the year.

Mulled wine is full of Christmas cheer.

Jose Luis Mora, the lead bartender at the award-winning Sea Grill at Puente Romano Beach Resort in Spain, said he's a fan of many holiday cocktails.

Although seasonal specialties like a winter espresso martini with peppermint or a pumpkin-flavored whiskey sour are fun, Mora finds himself reaching for a staple: glühwein.

Glühwein, or mulled wine, combines ingredients like red wine, vermouth, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and citrus fruits. It's served warm, so it's perfect for any outdoor holiday event.

Don't hate on eggnog.

Liana Oster, who's worked at award-winning bars around the world and is now the beverage director at NoMad London, also loves classics. Her first favorite is eggnog.

"I love the process of making it, drinking it, and often gifting it," she told BI. "I've been lucky to try a number of different styles, some classic, some contemporary, like pumpkin-infused or frozen."

The fact that everyone has their own recipe gives the cocktail a special touch at parties and events.

Break out the punch bowl for your next party.

Charné van Heerden, South Africa's 2023 bartender of the year and the owner of HiBall, said holiday cocktails look a little different in the Southern Hemisphere — it's summer there, after all.

"Hands down, my holiday go-to is any punch-style drink," she told BI. "My easy-to-whip-up recipe consists of rooibos tea, strawberry oleo, citrus, and, of course, brandy (a lot of it)."

She serves it chilled to beat the summer heat, and making a big batch ahead of the party makes it easy for people to top up their glasses.

Spiced cocktails fit the season well.

Stanislav Harcinik, the ambassador at the award-winning Mirror Bar Cocktail Bar in Washington, DC, shared some of his favorite Slovakian holiday cocktails from his homeland.

"In Slovakia, it's very traditional to 'spice' our drinks during the holidays with our own fruit eau-de-vies like slivovica (plum) or jablkovica (apple)," he said. Eau-de-vie is a kind of brandy made with fermented fruits.

To finish off the traditional winter drink, he mixes it with some ginger juice, honey, and lemon.

• Some of the trendiest bars in New York City and London are selling pint-size versions of martinis.
• They are cheaper — more of an aperitif — yet offer what one bar chief called a "mini luxury moment."
• The drink aligns with Gen Z's alcohol habits and taps into demand for luxury experiences.

The New York Happy Meal — a martini and french fries — is going on a diet.

Younger generations are ditching their elders' heavier drinking habits, fueling the growth of alcohol-free alternatives and, in turn, causing a slowdown in the spirits category.

The wine and spirits consultancy IWSR said the category saw volumes plummet by 5% in the UK last year. The same year, over in the US, it says spirits sales volumes fell by 2% — the first time in nearly 30 years the consultancy had measured a decline there.

In this environment, martinis at some of the trendiest bars in New York City and London are starting to look a little different.

They still have alcohol — traditionally a mix of dry vermouth and gin — but generally contain just a few ounces of liquid and are served in smaller versions of a standard martini glass that can hold between six and eight ounces.

And once you start noticing them on bar menus, it can quickly start to feel like the tiny martini is everywhere.

Look no further than the Lower East Side's Bar Valentina's $10 Teeny 'Tinis, which a representative says have "really taken off" since introduced to the menu in 2023, or Tao Uptown's $15 tiny-martini flights.

Across the pond, at Tayēr and Elementary — a London bar regularly ranked close to the top on the World's 50 Best list — there's a blue-cheese version dubbed the "One Sip Martini" or OSP.

Missy Flynn, a co-owner who leads the bar operations at Rita's, an American-inspired restaurant in London's Soho neighborhood, told Business Insider the OSP had influenced the release of their crowd-favorite tiny martini in 2021 — gin-based, three ounces, and topped with an olive, jalapeño, and anchovy-stuffed gilda.

Tayēr and Elementary's tiny martini debuted in 2019, but a bar representative told BI: "These days, there is literally no table that wouldn't order them."

The beverage's cult following inspired the bar to launch a dedicated merch line featuring a £75 or $94 sweater.

For a growing number of Gen Zers, 3 to 4 sips of alcohol is plenty

The rise of the teeny-tiny martinis, which can be gulped down in just three to four sips, comes at a time when young people are increasingly disenchanted with alcohol.

In the US, the Pew Research Center found the percentage of adults ages 18 to 35 who said they drank alcohol at least occasionally fell from 72% in 2001-2003 to 62% in 2021-2023.

The sober-curious movement corresponds with the growing market share of the no- and low-alcohol category, which the IWSR expects to increase in volume at a compound annual growth rate of 7% between 2022 and 2026.

Tiny martinis' diminutive stature could make them more palatable to younger generations.

Smaller cocktails are social-media friendly, appealing to Gen Zer's love of sharing content online and tapping into the generation's obsession with "'mini' formats in consumer goods," Claudine Ben-Zenou, the head of IWSR Radius innovation tracking, told BI.

"It does appeal to people who are looking for something that's a bit less strong," Flynn, the co-owner of Ritas, told BI.

There's also a difference in price. The tiny martini at Rita's costs £9 ($11) without the additional £4 ($5) gilda — or garnish arranged on a cocktail skewer — compared with £13.50 to £14.50 ($17 -$18) for the other cocktails listed on the menu.

"As things become more expensive, in London and generally," Flynn said, "This idea of offering a small version of something that allows that person to have that experience within their time at the restaurant is a good thing."

Teeny, tiny moments of luxury

Another factor favoring the popularity of the mini martini is a heightened demand for luxury experiences.

Bain & Company's 2024 luxury monitor found the beleaguered luxury industry had been propped up this year by a growth in demand for luxury experiences.

"Luxury spending has shown remarkable stability this year, despite macroeconomic uncertainty, largely driven by consumers' appetite for luxury experiences," said Claudia D'Arpizio, a Bain & Company partner who leads the firm's global fashion and luxury practice.

In the UK, Flynn said, the martini has historically been viewed as the ultimate luxurious drink.

"We position them as these kind of special occasion drinks," she said. "You go to a fancy hotel bar, and you have a martini."

Tiny martinis might still scratch the itch for a special moment, Flynn added.

"What it offers," she said, "is that feeling of a mini luxury moment."