Give Your Canned Cranberries Some Spirit With Cocktail Ingredients

Mmm, canned cranberry sauce. Can't you just picture those gelatinous cylindrical blobs plopping right out of the tube, the impression of the can's ridges still intact? Okay, so maybe canned cranberry sauce won't win any Thanksgiving side dish beauty competitions.

And furthermore, it seems that it can also be a fairly polarizing menu choice, coming in at 13th on our list of "Popular Thanksgiving Side Dishes Ranked Worst to Best." In a survey conducted by Better Homes & Gardens rating the worst Thanksgiving sides, 24% of respondents picked cranberry sauce, the third highest percentage behind green bean casserole (yum) and candied yams (yuck).

Despite its less than stellar performance in these lists and rankings, American families still faithfully buy canned cranberry sauce, consuming more than 5 million pounds of the jellied fruit every holiday, according to Ocean Spray, which produces over 70 million cans of cranberry sauce annually. Maybe it's just because it's been grandfathered into traditional menu item status, but love them or hate them, canned cranberries appear to be here to stay. So, why not liven things up a bit this Thanksgiving by infusing it with some cocktail ingredients?

Move over mimosas. Since Thanksgiving is a gathering and celebration of family and friends, incorporating a little bit of the bubbly in your canned cran sauce only makes sense. Adding some champagne — the tipple of toasting and cheers-ing at weddings and New Year's Eve parties — after the canned cranberry sauce has cooled, can amp the taste up a notch. Or you can blend the champagne in during the boiling process if you want the flavor or essence minus the alcohol (via Insider).

Or shake some spirits into that canned cranberry. Several online recipes call for mixing in some orange liqueur such as triple sec or Grand Marnier. Some even recommend a splash of gin to further complement the tart, fruity flavors in the canned cranberry sauce. And if the canned stuff just won't float your boat even with the addition of booze, you can always try your chef's hand at making this "Sweet and Tart Cranberry Sauce Recipe" from scratch.