Cran-Merry Drink {Starbucks Copycat}

The coconut milk version of the Cran-Merry Orange Refresher is creamy, sweet, and even more delicious than the original! This copycat Starbucks recipe will let you enjoy the festive cranberry and blood orange Cran-Merry Drink at home throughout the holiday season.

Jump to:

• 🥤 What is the Cran-Merry Drink?
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 👩‍🍳 How to make base
• 🥥 How to make the drink
• 🎉 Variations on recipe
• 🧊 More ways to use base
• ☕️ More Starbucks holiday copycat recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

I think lots of people agree with me when I say that the "drinks" are often the best parts of the Starbucks Refreshers series.

We love the Pink Drink more than the Strawberry Acai Refresher and we love the Dragon Drink more than the Mango Dragonfruit Refresher. It's got to be the delicious creaminess of the added coconut milk in the "drink" versions.

The holiday 2024 Cran-Merry Orange Refresher lineup follows that same philosophy. We love the standard Refresher, but the Cran-Merry Drink is taking things to a whole new level.

It tastes kind of like a holiday creamsicle and we are SO here for it. We're also here for making an easy copycat drink at home!

🥤 What is the Cran-Merry Drink?

The Cran-Merry Drink takes the base from the Cran-Merry Orange Refresher and combines it with coconut milk (instead of water like the Refresher version does).

According to Starbucks, the drink takes "Seasonally inspired flavors of sweet orange, tart cranberry and warm spice shaken with ice, coconutmilk and delicious cranberry inclusions."

The base is made with cranberry and blood orange flavors, along with seasonal spices. And it's mixed with coconut milk and cranberries.

🗒 Ingredients

I always study the Starbucks ingredient lists before creating my copycat recipes, but generally make adjustments to get them tasting as close to the coffee shop version as possible.

As with all of their Refreshers, Starbucks uses a white grape juice concentrate for the Cran-Merry Drink. But when creating this at home, I feel like this gives the drink too much of a grape flavor and had much better luck with simply cranberry juice and blood orange syrup.

They don't list the "warm spices" they use, but I detect cinnamon and cloves, so that's what I used.

For their inclusions, they use freeze-dried cranberries, but I couldn't find any that were reasonably priced, so I used fresh cranberries. In the Starbucks version, you can't even tell the cranberries are freeze-dried since they lose that crunch once they're in the liquid.

Here's everything you need to make the Cran-Merry Drink at home (be sure to view the recipe card at the bottom of this post for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Cranberry juice: I use Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail
• Water
• Blood orange syrup: as soon as I can find blood oranges at my local grocery stores, I will share a homemade syrup recipe with you. For now, you can use store-bought blood orange syrup.
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground cloves
• Green coffee extract powder (optional): this is what Starbucks uses to add caffeine to their Refreshers, but you can omit if you don't want caffeine in yours.
• Sweetened coconut milk: the kind in the carton... I either use Silk Coconut Milk or SO Delicious Coconut Milk
• Freeze-dried or fresh cranberries: freeze-dried can be hard to find and pricey. And when they're added to the drink, they soften anyway and I found that the ones Starbucks use basically taste like regular fresh cranberries.

👩‍🍳 How to make base

This is one of the easier Refresher bases I've made at home because you simply add the few ingredients to a large jar and shake them to combine!

Just shake together the cranberry juice, water, blood orange syrup, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and green coffee extract powder (if using).

You can keep this sealed in the fridge for about two weeks.

That way it will be super easy to have a Cran-Merry Drink whenever your holiday heart desires!

🥥 How to make the drink

To turn the base into the "drink," all you need to do is put about ½ cup of the base and ½ cup sweetened coconut milk in a shaker with ice and ¼ cup of cranberries.

Shake until well-combined.

The mixture may curdle a little bit due to the citrus and coconut milk combining, but don't worry; it will taste great!

Pour entire mixture, including the ice into a glass.

This has to be the most festive and refreshing holiday drink around.

The cranberry and blood orange flavors work so well together and the warming spices make me want to drink this even in 30 degree temperatures.

I'm a little bit sad this isn't going to be a year-round drink for Starbucks, but when you know how to make it at home, it can certainly be year-round for you!

🎉 Variations on recipe

I love this copycat Cran-Merry Drink as is, but there are also a lot of adjustments you can make to suit it to your tastes.

Here are some ideas:

• If the drink is too sweet for you, you can certainly make it with unsweetened coconut milk instead. Or you can add more water to the base.

• If you want a sweeter drink, add more cranberry juice and blood orange syrup to the base.
  
• Starbucks does list Stevia as an ingredient in the Cran-Merry Drink, but I can't taste it (and I'm highly sensitive to the taste of it). But if you prefer this, you can use a cranberry juice with Stevia (Ocean Spray makes one).
  
• If you can't find blood orange syrup, you can substitute with a regular orange syrup, but the flavor profile will be a bit different as blood oranges are a bit less acidic and have some berry notes.
  
• If you love the idea of a cranberry orange drink, but don't like the holiday spices, you can certainly omit the cinnamon and cloves.
  
• I've seen so many people talking about how delicious this drink is with a splash of peach juice added in. Note that this will add even more sweetness to the drink.
  
• Add a cold foam on top. Either vanilla cold foam or strawberry cold foam would be awesome! These will also make the drink a bit sweeter.
  
• To add more fruity flavor without adding more syrup, consider using a cranberry juice blend, like cran-raspberry or cran-cherry.

Like with all of Starbucks Refreshers, it's easy to make this to perfectly fit your own tastes when you make it in your own kitchen.

🧊 More ways to use base

Now that you know how to make the cranberry orange base, you can use it to make any of the drinks in the Starbucks holiday Refresher lineup.

You can make a Cran-Merry Orange Refresher simply by mixing the base with water instead of coconut milk. This is the most basic of the Refreshers.

You can also make a Cran-Merry Orange Lemonade Refresher which is basically just this base combined with lemonade instead of water. If you don't think the Refresher is sweet enough, try mixing the base with lemonade instead. It also adds a bit more tartness.

Of course, when you make this at home, you can mix the base with whatever your heart desires and I fully encourage you to experiment!

☕️ More Starbucks holiday copycat recipes

If you want to get your Starbucks holiday drinks on at home, I have lots of fun recipes for you. Here are some of my favorite copycat holiday drinks:

Do you have a favorite seasonal drink from Starbucks?

The jury is still out on whether or not the Cran-Merry Orange Refresher lineup will be back at Starbucks next holiday season, but something tells me I'll be making the Cran-Merry Drink at home well into the summer months!

Happy holiday sipping!

📖 Recipe