With amazing Christmas cookies, eggnog, cocktails, chocolate truffles, and snack mixes on the holiday table, it's hard to pick which treat to eat first. Of course, no Christmas is complete without candy canes, whether they're mini-sized, jumbo sticks, or even Skittles-flavored. However, despite the festive red-and-white striped candy being necessary to hang on the tree and fill stockings with, you may find yourself with an excess of candy canes after Santa Claus comes to town. Instead of keeping them on your kitchen counter and lying to yourself that you "will eat one soon enough," you can use them up in an effective way with these TikTok hacks. Here are five ways to reuse your leftover candy canes after Christmas has passed.
Make Peppermint Vodka
Candy canes are temporary, but vodka is forever. Simply infuse your candy canes and/or peppermint candies for a few days and wait for your vodka to turn pale pink. Then, make sure to strain your vodka and refrigerate. You can have fun cocktails and shots all winter long.
Prepare for Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day decor and gifts are already starting to replace Christmas items on store shelves. You can also get a head start on V-Day by melting your candy canes into hearts. You can get even more creative like @simplelifeofsunshine and fill your hearts with chocolate and red and pink sprinkles.
Add peppermint syrup to your coffee bar.
The beauty of simple syrup is that it's just that–simple. All you need to do is take a half-cup of water and six candy canes, then bring them to a boil, according to @join_jules' recipe. From there, you will simmer until the candy is fully dissolved. Then, you'll have a zingy, refreshing simple syrup to add to cocktails, hot chocolate, and coffee. According to MasterClass, you can refrigerate homemade simple syrup for up to a month.
Make a scrub.
You can stock your bathroom with sugar scrub, coffee scrub, and now candy cane scrub, too. Get silky smooth, peppermint-fresh skin by combining sugar, crushed candy cane, peppermint essential oils, and coconut oil.
Make peppermint sugar cubes.
You can always have peppermint tea and mocha at the ready with your homemade candy cane sugar cubes. Simply blend six or more candy canes with a half cup of white sugar and one tsp. of water. Add these to an ice cube tray and let dry. Then, you'll have little bursts of flavor to add to your hot drinks in the winter months.