Cocktails by Type

The foundational cocktails with a settled, long-standing standard recipe — no single fixed formula across the category, but each individual drink has one agreed-upon version that's stayed essentially unchanged for decades, sometimes over a century. These are the drinks every other format in this list ultimately descends from or riffs on.

Brandy/Cognac

Brandy Alexander

A dessert in a coupe glass — cognac, chocolate, and cream in equal, easy balance.

Brandy/Cognac

Champs-Élysées

Cognac, green Chartreuse, and lemon — a Sidecar's more herbal, more serious cousin.

Vodka

Cosmopolitan

Pink, tart, and better than its reputation — a real cocktail, not just a prop.

Brandy/Cognac

French Connection

Two ingredients, one glass, zero fuss — cognac and amaretto, built straight over ice.

Brandy/Cognac

Jack Rose

Apple brandy, lemon, lime, and grenadine — pink, tart, and built for warm weather.

One of the oldest documented cocktail families, first written down in 1862: a base spirit, citrus juice (usually lemon), and a sweetener, sometimes with egg white for texture. The format is simple but foundational — nearly every citrus-driven cocktail traces back to this basic spirit-citrus-sugar structure, shaken hard and served either up or over ice.

Rum

Classic Daiquiri

Three ingredients, no garnish, nothing to hide behind — this is the one that tells you if a bar knows what it's doing.

Tequila/Mezcal

Classic Frozen Margarita

The frozen drink with a documented birthday — 1971, Dallas, a repurposed soft-serve machine.

Rum

Mango Chilli Daiquiri

Mango sweetness meets a real chilli kick — the Daiquiri format, turned up.

Tequila/Mezcal

Pineapple Habanero Mezcal Sour

Smoky mezcal, sweet pineapple, and a slow habanero burn.

Rum

Pineapple-Habanero Daiquiri

Bright fruit up front, slow burn on the finish — this one sneaks up on you.

The simplest cocktail format there is: a spirit topped with a larger volume of a carbonated mixer, poured into a tall glass over ice, capped at 10oz by definition. Unlike its close cousins (Rickey, Collins, Fizz), a true Highball traditionally skips citrus juice entirely — it's just spirit and carbonate, built for easy, long sipping.

Vodka

Bloody Mary

Part cocktail, part savoury snack — the drink that started brunch's whole genre.

Whiskey

Bourbon Lemonade Cooler

Bourbon softened by lemonade and peach — the pour that gets people who "don't like whiskey" to finish the glass.

Gin

Butterfly Effect

Starts deep blue. Squeeze the lime — it shifts to indigo-purple, right in the glass.

Rum

Classic Mojito

Mint, lime, crushed ice, rum — the drink that reminds everyone why rum exists.

Whiskey

Juneteenth Bourbon Strawberry Cooler

Muddled strawberries, bourbon, and a soda top — a drink built for the table, not the bar.

An Italian aperitivo format tracing back to 19th-century Veneto, where Austrian soldiers cut local wine with soda water because it was too strong for their taste. Over time that evolved into today's structure: a bitter or bittersweet liqueur, sparkling wine, and a splash of soda, built directly in a wine glass over ice. Low-ABV and effervescent by design, meant for slow, social sipping before a meal.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Aperol Spritz

Bitter-orange, bubbly, low-effort — the easiest cocktail on this entire site.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Campari Spritz

Bitter, bold, sunset-coloured — the spritz for someone who wants more edge than Aperol gives.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Hugo Spritz

Elderflower, bubbles, and mint — the spritz that skips Aperol's bitterness entirely.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Limoncello Spritz

Tart, citrus-bright, and underrated next to its more famous orange cousin.

Vodka

Watermelon Jalapeño Spritz

Watermelon-refreshing first, jalapeño-spicy second.

A mid-20th-century American invention, not a Polynesian import — born in 1930s Los Angeles bars built around rum, tropical fruit juices, and elaborate spiced syrups, wrapped in Pacific-island-inspired theatrics. The format typically blends multiple rum styles with fresh citrus and layered syrups for a fruit-forward, complex build, finished with lavish, often flaming garnishes.

Rum

Cloud Nine

Soft, tropical, and almost iridescent — the drink that looks like its name.

Tequila/Mezcal

El Diablo

Tequila, blackcurrant liqueur, lime, and a spicy ginger beer top — deceptively easy to underestimate.

Rum

Mai Tai

White rum, lime, orange curaçao, and orgeat — the tiki cocktail every other tiki cocktail gets measured against.

Vodka

Palm Springs

Vodka, pineapple, cranberry, and lime — four ingredients, zero fuss, straight beach-day energy.

Gin

Saturn

Gin, passion fruit, falernum, and orgeat, blended over crushed ice — a tiki cocktail that happens to run on gin instead of rum.

Cocktails invented roughly since the mid-1980s cocktail renaissance that have since traveled well beyond the bar that created them and earned a permanent, worldwide spot on menus. The defining trait isn't age — some are barely 15–20 years old — but reach: a genuine modern classic is one that spread far past its city of origin and got adopted broadly by other bartenders.

Gin

Bramble

A gin sour with a bruise-purple drizzle — as pretty as it is easy.

Brandy/Cognac

Intercontinental

Armagnac, amaro, and maraschino, stirred — three countries, one glass.

Tequila/Mezcal

Naked and Famous

Equal parts, smoky and bittersweet — modeled directly on the Last Word's structure.

Whiskey

Paper Plane

Equal parts, four ingredients, no garnish — one of the most-copied modern cocktails of the last two decades.

Whiskey

Penicillin

Smoky, honeyed, ginger-hot — the most-copied new cocktail of the last twenty years.

A shaken cousin of the Sour, built on spirit, citrus, and sugar, but finished differently: strained into a chilled glass with no ice at all, then topped with soda water to produce a thick, frothy head. Originally an 1800s morning drink — bartenders would serve them as a bracer before the coffee habit took over that role.

Brandy/Cognac

Brandy Daisy

Brandy, Chartreuse, and lemon, finished with a splash of soda — bright, herbal, and effervescent.

Gin

French 75

Named after a WWI field gun — for the kick a little Champagne adds to gin and lemon.

Gin

Gin Fizz

A Collins' shorter, foamier cousin — same bones, a proper shake, no dilution wasted.

Whiskey

Morning Glory Fizz

A Harry Johnson 1882 hair-of-the-dog classic — Scotch and absinthe, softened with egg white and soda.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Sloe Gin Fizz

Sloe gin's fruity depth, given the classic Fizz treatment.

Spirit, ginger beer or ginger ale, and lime juice, served over ice — distinguished from a Highball by that citrus component and from a Rickey by using ginger rather than plain soda. Emerged during Prohibition, and deliberately carries no added sugar; the ginger carbonate itself supplies all the sweetness the drink needs.

Gin

Gin Buck

The Moscow Mule's gin-forward cousin.

Whiskey

Kentucky Buck

Bourbon's warmth meets fresh strawberry and a bright ginger snap.

Tequila/Mezcal

Mexican Mule

The Moscow Mule's tequila-forward cousin.

Vodka

Moscow Mule

The copper-mug drink — vodka, lime, a proper ginger kick.

Rum

Rum Buck

The Moscow Mule's rum-forward cousin — same ginger snap, warmer backbone.

A short, muddled format built on spirit, fresh mint (or other herbs/fruit), and sugar, shaken and served over crushed or cubed ice. Closely related to the Julep but generally shorter and citrus-forward, developed as a lighter, warm-weather counterpart to heavier stirred drinks.

Gin

Cucumber-Jalapeño Gin Smash

Garden-fresh cucumber meets real jalapeño heat.

Rum

Rum Smash

The Whiskey Smash template, rebuilt with rum's warmth instead.

Tequila/Mezcal

Tequila Smash

The Smash format, rebuilt with tequila's agave character.

Vodka

Vodka Smash

The Smash format's lightest, fruitiest version.

Whiskey

Whiskey Smash

An Old Fashioned that decided to wake up — muddled mint, fresh lemon, same whiskey backbone.

Spirit, fresh lime juice, and soda water, built directly over ice — and notably, no sugar at all. Invented in 1880s Washington, D.C., specifically because its namesake preferred his drink without sweetener; it sits between a Collins and a Sour but stays drier and more citrus-forward than either.

Whiskey

Bourbon Rickey

The Rickey's original spirit — before gin became the more common modern version.

Gin

Gin Rickey

No sugar, no syrup — just gin, lime, and soda.

Rum

Rum Rickey

Rum's warmth, the Rickey's total dryness.

Tequila/Mezcal

Tequila Rickey

The Rickey format's agave version — dry, tart, no sugar.

Vodka

Vodka Rickey

The cleanest, most neutral Rickey on this site.

A spirit or fortified wine shaken hard with a whole egg (or just the yolk) and sugar until silky, traditionally finished with a dusting of nutmeg. Dating to 1600s England, Flips were originally served hot; the modern version is shaken cold and strained into a chilled glass, valued for its rich, velvety texture.

Tequila/Mezcal

Death Flip

Fernet's bitterness meets the Flip format's whole-egg richness — not a drink for the faint-hearted.

Gin

Gin Flip

Gin's botanicals, given the Flip family's rich, whole-egg treatment.

Rum

Rum Flip

Rum's warmth, given the same rich, whole-egg treatment as the Whiskey Flip.

Aperitif/Liqueur

Vermouth Flip

The Flip format's lowest-proof version — fortified wine instead of spirit.

Whiskey

Whiskey Flip

Whole egg, not just white — this is the richest, silkiest whiskey drink on the site.