The 30 Best Classic Cocktail Recipes Every Home Bartender Should Know

This quintessential New Orleans cocktail, the Sazerac, has a beautiful spice character from the rye whiskey, compared to an Old Fashioned that would use the sweeter bourbon. To merely dismiss the Sazerac as yet another Old Fashioned variation is to miss its charms. The Peychaud’s Bitters, all cherry and anise as opposed to Angostura Bitters’ cinnamon and clove, combines with the herbal pop of absinthe and the spicy backbone of the rye to create something wholly new. Served as it is without ice, the herbaceousness transforms as it warms, evolving contemplatively in your glass.

Take a rocks glass and either chill it in the freezer or with ice water. While it gets cold, in a separate mixing glass, combine liquid ingredients and stir for 10 seconds (if using very small ice) to 30 seconds (if using bigger cubes). Grab your now cold rocks glass, coat the inside with absinthe and empty the excess, then strain the cocktail into the absinthe-rinsed glass. Express a lemon peel over the top and then discard, serving the cocktail without garnish.

There are two Daiquiris, and for our purposes, we can divide them into the right kind and the wrong kind—and if you believe Daiquiris to be blended concoctions of sour mix spiked with rum so cheap they don’t sell it in liquor stores, I regret to inform you that you’ve only had the wrong kind. “One is the neon slushy you’d get in Cancun that’s so sweet you involuntarily lick the air after you taste it,” we’ve warned you of previously, “and the other is one of the greatest simple cocktails of all time.” A proper Daiquiri is simply rum, lime, and sugar—find out why it’s a great litmus test of a bartender’s skill, or just make one, below.

Add ingredients to shaker tin, add ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain off ice into a stemmed coupe glass. Garnish with a thin lime wheel or honestly nothing at all and enjoy while reflecting that the best things are often the simplest.

“Is there a more agreeable drink than a well-made Whiskey Sour?” we asked last summer, and we’re still not sure there is. Whiskey, with its broad shoulders and oaky fullness, can be almost completely disarmed by tarting it up with fresh lemon juice and balancing with simple syrup, as bartenders have been doing since roughly forever. We say “almost” because often (though not always) you need a little extra push by way of an egg white.

Add all ingredients to a shaker tin. “Dry” shake ingredients without ice for five seconds to whip the egg. Add ice, seal tins, and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain into coupe, Martini glass, or rocks glass—it’ll come out white at first, and the color will emerge over the course of a minute under a paper-smooth head of foam. Express a lemon peel over the top of the foam for aroma and discard and decorate the foam with a few drops or dashes of Angostura Bitters.

The Queen’s Park Swizzle is like the alter ego of the Mojito, its dark twin. “If the Mojito is like a lovely evening with your spouse,” we write, “the Queen’s Park Swizzle is like a beautiful stranger leading you by the hand down a dark hallway towards the sounds of a party you can’t yet see.” They share a build—rum, lime, simple syrup, and mint—but the Queen’s Park trades the Mojito’s easy brightness of light rum for the indulgent vanilla notes of an aged rum, and adds a spicy shock of Angostura Bitters on top, all supercharged by the chilling power of crushed ice. Make the recipe below and find out why it has been called “the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today.”

Add mint leaves to a tall glass. Add simple syrup and gently muddle mint into the syrup. Add crushed ice two-thirds or so full and agitate (either swizzle back and forth with a swizzle stick or a bar spoon, or else just stir) until the glass begins to frost. Add crushed ice to fill and decorate the top with two to three dashes of Angostura Bitters. Garnish with a mint sprig and serve with a straw.

And, of course, the Mojito, the drink that’s like a beachy Cuban summer in a glass. It’s light, bright, effervescent, and fresh. There was a time when the Mojito was the bane of bartenders back in the early aughts when the drink was popular but the craft cocktail movement hadn’t really found its sea legs yet. So that usually meant this drink felt like a chore to make during an era of Jack and cokes and vodka-sodas. But once we introduced fresh ingredients and proper technique across the world of cocktails, it was time to reclaim the Mojito’s honor.

Add all ingredients to cocktail shaker and shake. In a tall glass, gently muddle an additional three to five mint leaves. Shake the cocktail and strain into the glass over fresh ice. Top with 1 to 2 oz. soda water. Garnish with two mint crowns (the top of the plant) twisted together to form a bushy mint explosion on top.

Before gin and Champagne ever got involved, the French 75, officially “Matériel de 75 mm Mle 1897,” was a 2,700-lb field gun rolled out by the French to fight WWI. As for the cocktail, made as it originally was—which is to say, a full-strength drink into which was mixed a half glass of wine—the French 75 certainly had the firepower to earn its name. That first reported recipe differs from what you find now. For years the French 75 was served on the rocks in a tall glass, essentially a Tom Collins with the soda water swapped for sparkling wine. The modern incarnation is in a flute, sans the ice. In the video above, we show how to make the two versions of the beloved Champagne cocktail the French 75 and explain the key differences between the two.

Proper French 75

Shake first three ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled flute, and top with about 3 oz. of chilled Champagne.

Old School French 75

Shake first three ingredients over ice. Strain into a tall glass over ice, and top with about 3 oz. of sparkling wine.

There is no better or more convincing a liquid cheerleader for tequila than a well-made Margarita. Those who’ve had one already agree. Those who haven’t—those for whom all they know is some $13 bottle of tequila mixed with day-glo “Margarita Mix,” with respect, you’ve not had a Margarita, you’ve had citric acid and sodium benzoate and high-fructose corn syrup cosplaying as a Margarita. A proper Margarita is exuberance in a glass, “the spirit of unfussy joie de vie,” we write, “that acknowledges the potential for fun in any situation.” The classic version is below, or learn how to make the extremely popular Tommy’s Margarita.

For both: Add ingredients to shaking tin, or blender, with lots of ice. Shake, or blend, until ice cold. Pour into a glass, garnish with a bright slice of lime, and indulge.

The Piña Colada is a vacation in itself, “the cocktail equivalent,” we say, “of the guy at the bar wearing a Hawaiian shirt who keeps trying to strike up conversations with everyone, and whom you end up liking despite yourself.” It is as much as anything responsible for the sugary reputation of rum drinks, but with a lighter hand on the coconut and a little added lime juice, it can be transcendent. Honestly, even bad ones are pretty good, and good ones are phenomenal.

If using pebble ice: Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with a handful of pebble ice and “whip” to mix everything together. Dump contents into a festive glass and pack in as much more ice as will fit.

If using a blender: Add liquid ingredients and about 6 to 8 oz. ice to a blender and blend on high for about 10 seconds. Empty into a festive glass.

In both cases, garnish with pineapple leaves, an orange slice and a little colorful umbrella, if you’ve got it.

Don’t be fooled by the Mint Julep. Its campaign materials may have you convinced it’s just a harmless little minty refresher, but in reality it’s nearly a double-pour of bourbon, tempered only by mint and a touch of sugar. Nonetheless, some 120,000 Mint Juleps are consumed across two sunny days at Churchill Downs during the Kentucky Derby, proving that some cocktails can become refreshing daytime summer sippers just by sheer force of will, and a little crushed ice. Find out the best bourbon to use for your Mint Julep here, or if the race is about to start, quickly fix one up according to the recipe below.

In a metal cup, gently muddle the mint into the simple syrup. Add bourbon, and fill 2/3 with crushed ice. Stir to chill, until a frost forms on the outside. Then pack the rest of the cup with ice. Take two mint crowns, lightly bruise them with your fingers, and stick them against the inside close to the straw. Enjoy.

In the world of Manhattan variations, the Brooklyn is one of the best. The problem is that a key ingredient to make an authentic Brooklyn cocktail, Amer Picon, is illegal in the United States. So despite this drink being perhaps better than its older brother, the Manhattan, you’re much less likely to encounter it in the wild. However we tinkered endlessly to a substitute for this French liqueur and has found one in using Amaro Ramozzotti and a couple dashes of orange bitters to go with the rye whiskey, dry vermouth, and maraschino liqueur.

Add all ingredients to a chilled mixing glass. Add ice and stir briskly for 10 seconds (if using small ice) to 25 seconds (if using big ice). Strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Of the 10 million or so variations on the Negroni the Boulevardier is probably the oldest and almost certainly the best. A mixture of bourbon, Campari, and sweet vermouth, the Boulevardier replaces the prickly gin with the broad oaky shoulders of a good American whiskey, bringing a welcome touch of vanilla to Campari’s orange. It’s branchy herbaceousness, ample fruit, and bittersweet character fit into the season perfectly, equally at home in both warm and cold weather, and either before or after dinner,

Add ingredients to a rocks glass with ice. Stir for 10 seconds if the ice is small, 30 seconds if one big cube and somewhere between if ice is somewhere between. Garnish with an orange peel.

“Across the entire classic cocktail universe,” we claim, “no drink has suffered more indignity—had more liquid crimes done in its name—than the Mai Tai.” Like the Daiquiri, you might think you know what the Mai Tai is about, but if you’re picturing a deathly sweet, over-juiced concoction, you’re picturing the wrong one. The original 1944 Mai Tai is just rum, lime, orange liqueur and almond—tart and bracing, and among the strongest of the classic cocktails. Find out what Mai Tai means (and how it became the sugar-embalmed zombie version of itself) here or make one for yourself with the recipe below.

Add all ingredients together in a tin with crushed ice. Shake briefly, about five seconds and empty contents into a tropical-looking glass. Pack with more crushed ice and garnish with a juiced lime husk and a sprig of mint, so it looks like a palm tree on a small green island.

“You could spend weeks drinking nothing but different tasty gin sour variations,” we write, “but personally, I don’t know if you could do better than the Clover Club.” Throughout its 120 year history the Clover Club—a gin sour, tarted up with fresh raspberries and smoothed out with an egg white—has been celebrated, then dismissed, then forgotten, and now, finally, is back on top. Find out what it has to do with Oscar Wilde here, or just do what William Butler Yeats did upon discovering it and make three of them all for yourself by the recipe below:

Add all ingredients to a shaker tin. “Dry” shake ingredients without ice for five seconds to whip the egg. Add ice, seal tins and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain into coupe or martini glass, express a lemon peel over the top of the foam for aroma and discard and garnish with one to three raspberries, on a pick.

Considering the Sidecar is a classic cocktail, it stands to reason there would be a standardized, unassailable recipe for this sour, but no such luck. While historians and bartenders have debated the proper proportions of Cognac, orange liqueur, and lemon juice for this drink, there remains disagreement over the best recipe. However, we’ve tried every iteration we can find and believe we’ve found the most outstanding version you can make. In the video above, we walk you through that version step-by-step.

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake hard for perhaps a touch less time than you would a normal sour, maybe five to eight seconds. Strain into a coupe or cocktail class, and garnish with an orange peel.

The Gimlet is a classic cocktail that didn’t start behind some fancy bar, but on the high seas. Well, kind of. The British Navy was suffering from scurvy when it ruled the high seas, until Lauchlan Rose found a way to preserve lime with sugar. Rose’s Lime Cordial was born. Sailors could mix Rose’s concoction with their rum ration, but officers required good British gin, and gin with lime cordial is a Gimlet. Despite being a simple two-ingredient cocktail on paper, the right cordial is crucial. You’ll want to throw away that mass-produced Rose’s Lime Juice you’d find today in stores today and opt for one you make yourself. Fortunately, in the video above we show you how to make that cordial and the drink as well.

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain off the ice either up into a cocktail glass or else onto fresh ice in a rocks glass, and garnish with a lime wheel or peel.

*Lime Cordial

Recipe from jeffreymorgenthaler.com

Zest the lime and put the lime zest into a blender. Juice the zested lime(s) into the blender, then add the sugar, water, and citric acid. After blending on medium speed for 30 seconds, strain with a fine strainer. Bottle and refrigerate or mix a cocktail immediately, if you so choose.

James Bond has attempted to convince us that the Martini is a vodka drink, but the word “Martini” exclusively referred to a mixture of gin and vermouth for the first half of its life. And while vodka Martinis can be charming all their own, we write that “the aromatic complexities of gin and vermouth lock into each other like a vacuum seal, and render the cocktail’s 130-year dominance immediately clear.” We include the most straightforward variation below, but you can also see read two other variations on the Martini.

Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir well for 10 seconds (if using small ice) to 25 seconds (if using very large ice), strain into a cocktail or Martini glass, and garnish with a lemon peel.

The Bee’s Knees—gin, lemon, and honey—is a simple drink with a rich backstory. It was invented in the Roaring ’20s in Paris by none other than “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, the woman who survived the Titanic sinking and went on to become a leading progressive activist, suffragette, and, eventually, a bon vivant in Paris. We show you how to make the classic below, but the Bee’s Knees is a great starting point for endless variations.

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strain off the ice into a coupe or Martini glass. Garnish with a lemon peel, a lemon wheel or even nothing at all.

The Aviation isn’t for everyone. However, if it’s for you, you’ll love it. That’s because this classic gin cocktail, invented by Hugo Ensslin in New York in 1916, it features the floral and divisive creme de violette along with maraschino liqueur. A little bit of creme de violette goes a long way. This variation on a gin sour was rediscovered more than a decade ago by David Wondrich and became part of the cocktail renaissance that make drinking in America so much better.

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail tin with ice and shake for 10 to 12 seconds. Double strain it into a coupe and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

This equal parts cocktail may knock you on your ass. Invented at the Detroit Athletic Club in 1916, the Last Word was revived in 2003 by legendary Seattle bartender Murray Stenson at the Zig Zag Café. In video above, we show show you how this drink that languished in obscurity for many years because a darling of America’s cocktail revival.

Shake long and hard over ice, 12 to 15 seconds, longer than most drinks—a little added dilution helps this drink be its best self. Strain into a coupe and garnish with a maraschino cherry, a lime wheel, or just nothing at all.

Invented by bartender Henry C. Ramos in the late 19th century at a bar in New Orleans, the Ramos Gin Fizz is one of those cocktails you really have to want in order to make it. That’s because you shake the Ramos Gin Fizz for a long time. Like, a really long time. We’re talking up to 12 minutes of shaking. But this gin cocktail is oh so worth it.

Add all ingredients except cream and soda water to a cocktail tin. Seal and shake without ice for 15 to 20 seconds. Open, add three to five cubes or a generous handful of pebble ice, seal and shake vigorously for about three to four minutes. Meanwhile, add about 1 to 2 inches of soda water to the bottom of a chilled, 10-to 12-oz. straight-sided collins glass. Now add the cream, and briefly shake (five seconds or so) to mix it all together, then strain the cocktail off the ice into the glass until the liquid line reaches nearly to the top. Then put the glass in the fridge to let the foam set for at least a minute, ideally three or four.

Once it’s set, retrieve the glass, poke a small hole in the center of the foam with a straw or bar spoon and slowly pour the remainder of the cocktail into the center hole until the foam head lifts above the rim of the glass. If you run out of cocktail, you can add a bit more soda, but don’t push your luck, even the best made Ramos will mushroom if the head gets too tall. Garnish with a straw balanced atop the foam and a sense of accomplishment.

One of the most influential figures in cocktail history is David Embury, author of The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. In his 1948 book he lays out the essential libations you need to know: the Martini, Daiquiri, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Sidecar, and the Jack Rose. Now, that list made total sense until the last one. The Jack Rose, of all drinks, is in the pantheon of cocktails? We weren’t so sure ourselves. That was, until we realized that the greatness of the drink was totally dependent on making your own grenadine (a.k.a. pomegranate syrup). Using store-bought slop makes the Jack Rose not worth it all. But craft your own grenadine and combine it with apple brandy (either American apple jack or French Calvados) and you have a transcendent drink. In the video above, you’ll learn how to make grenadine yourself and then how to deploy it in this outstanding drink.

Add all ingredients to a cocktail tin and shake hard on ice for 8 to 10 seconds, then double-strain into a coupe. No garnish.

It’s a devilish simple cocktail. Equal parts gin, Campari, sweet vermouth, stirred and served with an orange peel garnish. The Negroni is practically impossible to screw up and has been endlessly tinkered with since Count Camillo Negroni (or maybe someone else, who knows) invented the drink in 1919 when he ordered a version of the Americano made with gin instead of soda water. Who knows, and who cares, because this cocktail doesn’t need any sort of backstory to earn its legendary status.

Add all ingredients to a rocks glass with the biggest piece (or pieces) of ice you have. Stir five to 10 seconds (if you have small ice) or 15 to 20 seconds (if you have big ice). Garnish with an orange peel. Enjoy.

The Tom Collins is one of our foundational drinks, invented sometime in the 19th century (it’s hard to say exactly when) and taking modern form around the time when sparkling water started being widely available. And while it’s a foundational drink in the cocktail canon (enough to have it’s own glass!), it feels like one that’s oft overlooked. But we argue it shouldn’t be. This gin sour lengthened with soda water is a simple yet tasty delight of a drink.

Add gin, lemon, and simple syrup to a cocktail shaker with ice, and shake hard for five to eight seconds. Strain over fresh ice into a tall (Collins) glass, top with soda, and stir briefly to incorporate the soda into the rest of the drink. Garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry, if you have them, or a lemon peel, or honestly nothing at all.

Ernest Hemingway spent a lot of time in Havana and he became a regular of La Florida (affectionately known as La Floridita), a Cuban bar known for its delicious Daiquiris. He was such a fan of a Daiquiri variation that used Maraschino liqueur that the bar named it after him. Of course, the writer’s preferred recipe was unpalatably boozy. So we offer a way to make a more restrained—but still excellent—version of the Hemingway Daiquiri.

Combine ingredients either on finely shaved ice and shake, or otherwise to a blender and blend on high for 10 seconds. Serve up in a stemmed glass, and garnish with a scowl, or perhaps a war story.

One of the best ways to start a summer day is a leisurely alfresco brunch sipping on a good Bloody Mary. There are certainly a myriad of recipes out there for you to choose from and you don’t even have to use vodka as your base, as mezcal or tequila would work quite well if that’s your pleasure. O’Bryan shares his more details on his favorite recipe here, but he has an iron-clad rule of Bloody Mary’s: “Don’t consume them after sunset. Drinking a Bloody Mary at night just feels wrong and confusing, sacrilegious even, which is hilarious because everything else goes. If I were to add, say, barbecue sauce into a Moscow Mule, the only thing I know for sure is that is definitely no longer a Moscow Mule.” So use the recipe below for your hair of the dog, not your nightcap.

Assemble the cocktail with ice in the glass you’ll drink it in, and then roll it back and forth between that and another glass, mixing the ingredients without breathing too much air into the tomato juice. Do that five or six times and then garnish with a celery stalk, and perhaps something ostentatious like a poached shrimp or a cheeseburger, and enjoy.

The White Lady’s origin story involves a fairly dull dispute and we’ll spare you the details, but the cocktail took its current form in the foundational Savoy Cocktail Book, published in 1930. Within the decade bartenders would start using egg white as well, which is still what most people do today. But the recipe we lean toward is the one offered up legendary Japanese bartender Hidetsugu Ueno, who eschews the egg for his carefully crafted take on the classic.

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, and give it a long, hard shake, about eight to 10 seconds. Strain off the ice into a chilled coupe or Martini glass, and garnish with an orange peel.

The truth about Manhattans is that the specifics are everything. You’ll make a great Manhattan and think, “Ok! That’s my go-to Manhattan vermouth,” but then you try that same vermouth with a different whiskey and it’s terrible. Same with whiskies for a different vermouth. We spent months trying Manhattan combinations—the same rye across six vermouths, the same vermouth across six ryes, etc., etc., etc.—and what he consistently found was that it’s not about any one special bottle of whiskey or vermouth, but about how each two unique products work together. So after all of that tinkering and myriad of combinations, we didn’t emerge with one perfect Manhattan, but instead a series of different Manhattans that can suit your tastes or mood. Try each recipe below and tell us which one is your favorite.

The Opulent Manhattan

For this cocktail and the additional recipes below, add ingredients to mixing glass, stir on ice for 15 seconds (small ice) to 30 seconds (bigger ice). Strain into stemmed cocktail glass and garnish with a quality cocktail cherry.

The Dark Manhattan

The Eccentric Manhattan

It’s the cocktail that helped make vodka a thing in America. At the Cock ‘n Bull on Los Angeles’s famed Sunset strip, the drink was a serendipitous union the owner of Smirnoff trying to get Americans to drink vodka, and another man trying to get them to buy his ginger beer. Enter the Moscow Mule. The two ingredients mixed together—with the help of some lime and bitters—helped each other take off after the drink was created around 1940. The Cock ‘n Bull closed after 50 years in 1987, but the Moscow Mule still lives on.

Add all ingredients over ice in a copper or copper-plated mug and stir to combine. Garnish with a lime wedge.

The classic Manhattan has numerous variations on its mix of rye, vermouth, and bitters. And with each one, there’s a new name, paying homage to the neighborhood or borough where it was created. The New Orleans version was created in the city’s French Quarter—or Vieux Carré—where there’s the addition of Benedictine and Cognac.

Stir for 20 to 30 solid seconds. Strain into cocktail glass, garnish with a lemon peel.

It’s the granddaddy of them all. The Old Fashioned first appeared in print in 1880, but surely existed before then. The name is fitting, as it’s a timeless classic. It’s simple and malleable, thus tweaked constantly by bartenders for well over a century. But sometimes its just great to come back to the original.

Assemble ingredients in a rocks glass, add ice (the bigger the better) and stir for 8 to 20 seconds. Smaller ice will need less stirring. Remove a thin piece of peel from a lemon (for rye) or orange (for bourbon), getting as little of the bitter white pith as possible; hold the peel between your fingers with the outside facing the top of the drink and pinch slightly to express the citrus oils over the top.