How to eat, drink and be thankful with fun holiday cocktails

Lattes get all the pumpkin spice buzz, but wouldn't it be more fun to get those flavors — and that buzz — in a Thanksgiving cocktail?

Nutmeg, cloves, ginger and cinnamon, on the other hand — the flavors behind pumpkin pie's warm and tasty kick — do taste like the holidays and are a good starting point when looking to give your cocktails a holiday spin.

For the syrup, gently simmer 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar and four or five cinnamon sticks for 10 minutes.

To make Wedderburn's pumpkin fizz, in a cocktail shaker combine 2 ounces of vodka, 3/4 ounce lemon juice, 1/2 ounce cinnamon syrup, 1/2 ounce half-and-half, one egg white and 1 tablespoon pumpkin butter.

Michael Goldman, brand ambassador for Maison Ferrand, a French spirits company, makes cranberry syrup using 1 cup each of water, sugar and cranberries, plus 2 teaspoons of orange zest.

For a seasonal gin and tonic, Goldman uses 1/4 ounce of the cranberry syrup to 2 ounces of gin mixed with a drier tonic, such as Q Tonic.

While white spirits make great holiday cocktails — vodka is a blank canvas; gin comes with juniper notes — brown spirits are Schick's go-to liquor.

Speaking of old fashioneds, Las Vegas bar manager Hien Truong likes to infuse bourbon with cinnamon, allspice, cardamom and nutmeg as a springboard for an apple spiced old fashioned.

Truong, bar manager at Bazaar Meat by Jose Andres and Bar Centro, both located at the SLS Hotel, uses 3 to 4 cinnamon sticks for a 750-milliliter bottle of bourbon along with about 20 allspice berries, 15 cardamom pods, 3 whole nutmegs, 10 cloves and the peel of two oranges.