12 Pretty AF Cocktails to Impress Your Friends at Your Next Get-Together
"Oh this? Just something I whipped up."
The art of a good drink all comes down to taste, of course—but making it Instagrammable certainly doesn't hurt. Here, 12 cool summery cocktails that are delicious, sure...but are also total snap bait.
1.Blood and Passion(Fruit) Margarita
Ingredients:
1.5 parts Milagro Silver Tequila
1 part Solerno Blood Orange Liqueur
.75 part fresh lime juice
.50 part Monin Passion Fruit Syrup
Directions:
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Shake ingredients with ice and strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with a blood orange slice and edible orchid or pansy.
Created by Charlotte Voisey, William Grant & Sons
2.Patriot Punch
Ingredients:
2 parts Absolut Vodka
1 parts Lemonade
1 part watermelon juice
Frozen blueberries and strawberries, lemon wheels, mint sprigs
Directions:
Combine all ingredients over large chunks of ice. Decorate with the above garnishes.
3.May Flowers
Ingredients:
1.5 oz. Absolut Vodka
.25 oz. maraschino liquor
.75 east india sherry
1-2 drops almond extract
.75 oz. lemon
Directions:
Dry shake and strain over crushed ice in a short rocks glass. Use radish sprouts as "roots," and garnish with a bouquet of edible flowers.
4.Spicy Watermelon Agave Poptail
Ingredients:
1 Watermelon Agave GoodPop
1.5 ounces tequila
3 ounces Topo Chico or sparkling mineral water
Salt
Chile Powder
Lime
Jalapeño
Crushed ice
Directions:
Rub lime wedge around edge of cocktail glass and rim glass with salt and chile powder. Add Topo Chico and tequila to glass with 1/4 cup crushed ice. Swirl in Watermelon Agave GoodPop. Garnish with fresh jalapeño slice and lime.
5.Pinnacle Raspberry Lemonade
Ingredients:
1 parts Pinnacle® Raspberry Vodka
2 parts Lemonade
Directions:
Mix ingredients and serve over ice. Garnish with a lemon wheel or raspberries.
6.Kingston Negroni
Ingredients:
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
1 oz. Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir briskly until just cold. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Squeeze the juice from an orange peel over the top, and then insert the peel for garnish.
Available at Pouring Ribbons
7.Red, Red Rita
Ingredients:
1 part Sauza Signature Blue Silver Tequila
1 part blood orange juice
1/2 part lime juice
1/2 part simple syrup
1 blood orange wheel
Directions:
Add ingredients to an ice-filled shaker. Shake and strain over ice into a margarita glass, rimmed with salt. Garnish with a blood orange wheel.
8.New Pal
Ingredients:
¾ oz. Chamomile-Infused Campari
1.5 Glen Grant
¾ oz. Dolin Blanc
Directions:
Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with chamomile stalks.
Created by Naren Young, Dante
9.Negroni
Ingredients:
¾ oz. Campari
1 ½ oz. Beefeater
¾ oz. Carpano Antica
1 ½ dash Angostura bitters
Directions:
Stir ingredients. Serve over rocks with an orange twist tucked in.
Available at Amor y Amargo
10.Bitter Bird
Ingredients:
¾ oz. Campari
¾ oz. Dolin Rouge
½ oz. Plantation Pineapple
½ oz. Cruzan Blackstrap
Directions:
Shake ingredients with ice and strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass, ideally of the tiki variety. Add a pineapple leaf for garnish.
Available at Mother of Pearl
11.Gin Mare Summer
Recipe:
40 ml. Gin Mare Mediterranean Gin
10 ml. Gomme Syrup
15 ml. Limoncello
75 ml. Orange Juice
15 ml. Aperol and Grenadine (pre mix at 50-50%)
20 ml. 1724 Tonic Water
Directions:
Shake the gin, syrup, limoncello, and orange juice in a shaker, and strain into a tall glass filled with ice cubes. Let it settle and then add the Aperol and grenadine mix. Top it with 1724 tonic water and garnish with a half slice of orange, a slice of lemon, and fresh thyme sprigs.
12.Ananas Artois
Ingredients:
3/4 oz. pineapple jalapeño juice (see recipe below)
A scoop of ice
Directions:
Mix the ingredients together in a double old fashioned glass. Top with Stella Artois Cidre and stir. Garnish with a skewered pineapple slice dusted with nutmeg.
To make the Pineapple Jalapeño Juice:
Ingredients:
2 whole pineapples
2 fresh jalapeños
Olive oil
Ground nutmeg
A pinch of sea salt
Stella Artois Cidre
1/2 cup of raw sugar
Remove the pineapple's skin, top and bottom. Slice into 1 inch thick discs and cut the jalapeños in half lengthwise. On a baking tray or platter, drizzle ¾ of the pineapple slices and the jalapeños with olive oil and add a dusting of nutmeg. Grill on medium heat for 8 minutes per side until the jalapeños' skin is well blistered and it has softened significantly. Place the pineapple, jalapeños, a pinch of salt and ½ bottle of Stella Artois Cidre in a food processor and purée. Strain the mixture 2-3 times. While the juice is warm, stir in the raw sugar until dissolved. Garnish with slices of the remaining pineapple.
*Can be made up to 4 days prior to serving and stored in an air tight container.
Courtesy Joann Greenwood, Bar Manager, The Sage Rabbit (Lexington, KY)
Samantha Leal is the Deputy Editor at Well+Good, where she spends most of her day thinking of new ideas across platforms, bringing on new writers, overseeing the day-to-day of the website, and working with the awesome team to produce the best stories and packages. Before W+G, she was the Senior Web Editor for Marie Claire and the Deputy Editor for Latina.com, with bylines all over the internet. Graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University with a minor in African history, she’s written everything from travel guides to political op-eds to wine explainers (currently enrolled in the WSET program) to celebrity profiles. Find her online pretty much everywhere @samanthajoleal.
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