Courses & dish types
Cocktails recipes
Balance, dilution, temperature.
A cocktail is a ratio, and the reason recipes here are given in millilitres rather than in parts or dashes is that the ratio is the whole thing. Three techniques cover almost all of them: stirred for anything made only of spirits, which keeps it clear and dense; shaken for anything containing citrus, dairy or egg, which needs the aeration; and built in the glass for the simple ones. The most common home fault is not the ingredients but the ice — too little, too small, or too wet — and every recipe here says how much and what kind.
30 recipes
Whisky Sour
Whiskey, lemon and sugar shaken with egg white until it wears a thick pale collar, with bitters dotted across the foam.
Singapore Sling
Gin, cherry brandy and pineapple built long over ice — the hotel-bar drink that survived a century of people getting it wrong.
Painkiller
Dark rum with pineapple, orange and coconut cream, shaken rather than blended, and finished with far more grated nutmeg than seems reasonable.
Daiquiri
Three ingredients and nowhere to hide: white rum, lime and sugar, shaken hard and drunk cold and straight up.
Blue Hawaii
Rum, vodka, pineapple and blue curaçao — a drink invented to match a colour, and none the worse for admitting it.
Caribbean Rum Punch
A jug punch on the old sour-sweet-strong-weak ratio, spiced with nutmeg and Angostura and made to sit on a table rather than a bar.
Zombie
Three rums, two juices, falernum and absinthe over crushed ice — the strongest drink on any tiki menu, and built to taste as though it is not.
Piña Colada
Rum, pineapple and coconut cream blended with ice until thick enough to hold a straw upright.
Mojito
Mint pressed rather than pounded, with white rum, lime and soda over crushed ice, so it tastes of the leaf and not of the stalk.
Mai Tai
Aged rum, lime, orange curaçao and almond orgeat, shaken over crushed ice — a rum drink with no fruit juice in it beyond the lime.
Ti' Punch
Rhum agricole, cane syrup and a squeezed disc of lime, served without ice and mixed by the person drinking it.
Sidecar
Cognac, orange liqueur and lemon shaken cold and served up, sharp and clean, in a glass with a sugared rim if you want one.
Rum Swizzle
Two rums, two juices and bitters churned with crushed ice until the glass frosts and the drink turns cloudy and cold.
Planter's Punch
One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak — the old rhyme, built on dark Jamaican rum and drunk long over ice.
Paloma
Tequila lengthened with grapefruit soda and lime over ice — the drink Mexico actually orders, rather than the one it exports.
Old Fashioned
Whiskey, sugar and bitters built over one big piece of ice — the original definition of the word cocktail, and still the test of a bar.
Negroni
Equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, stirred over ice and served with orange — the bitter aperitivo that needs no shaking and no adjusting.
Margarita
Tequila, lime and orange liqueur shaken hard and served in a glass salted on one side only, so you can choose.
Manhattan
Rye whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters, stirred and served up with a cherry — the older, richer cousin of the martini.
Hurricane
Dark and light rum with passion fruit and citrus, sweet and red and considerably stronger than it looks.
Frozen Strawberry Daiquiri
White rum, lime and frozen strawberries blended to a thick slush that holds a straw upright.
Frozen Melon Colada
White rum, melon liqueur, pineapple and coconut blended into a thick pale-green frozen cocktail with a clean lime finish.
French 75
Gin, lemon and sugar lengthened with champagne — a sour that arrives in a flute and drinks far more easily than it should.
Espresso Martini
Vodka, coffee liqueur and a fresh shot of espresso shaken hard enough to build a proper crema on top.
Dry Martini
Gin and dry vermouth stirred down cold and served straight up, with a lemon twist or an olive and nothing else in the way.
Dark and Stormy
Ginger beer and lime with dark rum floated on top, so the first sip is rum and the last is ginger.
Caipirinha
Whole lime muddled with sugar and cachaça in the glass it is drunk from, with the peel oils very much part of the drink.
Bushwacker
A frozen chocolate-and-coconut rum drink from the Gulf coast, closer to a milkshake than a cocktail and unapologetic about it.
Bahama Mama
Two rums with coconut, pineapple and grenadine, shaken and poured tall over ice so the red sinks through it.
Aviation
Gin, maraschino, lemon and a measure of violet liqueur that turns it the pale grey-blue the drink is named for.