Looking to offer green cocktails for St. Patrick’s Day? Step away from the green food coloring! You can achieve fresh tasting and eye-pleasing green libations with herbs, vegetables, liqueurs—even matcha tea. Here are eight green drink recipes to try, plus a bonus brown cocktail. Sláinte!
Easy Being Green
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1 ½ oz. Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee whiskey
½ oz. Blue Curaçao
¼ oz. Licor 43
¼ oz. Simple syrup
¼ oz.+ Lemon juice
¼ oz.+ Lime juice
1 Egg white
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker. “Dry shake” without ice to mix the ingredients and then add ice and shake hard until chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Express the oils from a lemon peel over the top of the drink and discard the peel.
Mixologist Rachel Ramirez created this recipe for Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery.
110 Shades of Aspen
1 ⅓ oz. Martini Bianco
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. Fresh lime juice
⅓ oz. Demerara sugar syrup
1 handful Basil
1 Cucumber slice
Muddle the cucumber and basil in a shaker, add remaining ingredients and dry shake, then add ice and shake again. Double strain into coup glass and garnish with a dried Aspen leaf (if available) or basil leaf.
Andrei Kabaila of Casa Tua Aspen in Basalt, CO, created this recipe.
Wet Money
1 oz. Espolon Blanco tequila
1 oz. Thrasher’s white rum
¼ oz. Blue Curaçao
½ oz. Lemon juice
1 ½ oz. Passion fruit juice
2 droppers Salt water
Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a Tiki mug or a tall Collins glass with crushed ice.
Todd Thrasher, owner of Tiki TNT and Thrasher’s Rum in Washington, D.C., created this recipe.
Matchatini
2 oz. E11EVEN vodka
1 oz. Cucumber syrup
1 oz. Fresh orange juice
1 oz. Lemon juice
1 Cucumber strip for garnish
1 bar spoon Green matcha powder to dust the rim of the glass
Combine vodka, syrup and juice in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir for 30 seconds. Dust the rim of the coupe glass with green matcha powder. Strain cocktail into the glass and thread cucumber strip into a cocktail skewer and position across glass.
The mixologists at Nusr-Et Miami created this recipe.
Leprechaun’s Vacation
1 oz. Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka
½ oz. Blue Curaçao
3 oz. Pineapple juice
1 oz. Club soda
Combine ingredients (except soda) and shake. Strain into Collins glass over ice. Garnish with a pineapple slice and umbrella.
The mixologists at Smirnoff created this recipe.
The Green Crush
1 oz. Absente Absinthe Refined
1 ¼ oz. Rhum Barbancourt White Rhum
¾ oz. Vanilla syrup
½ oz. Lime juice
2 dashes Bitters
Dash of Lemon-lime soda
Combine ingredients, except for soda, with ice and shake. Strain into a highball glass over crushed ice. Top with lemon-lime soda and garnish with a lime wheel.
The mixologists at Absente created this recipe.
Emerald Isle
1 ½ parts Reyka vodka
½ part Passoa passion fruit liqueur
½ part Blue Curaçao
1 ½ parts Kiwi Perfect Puree
½ part Fresh lemon juice
½ part Simple syrup
Combine all ingredients together in a cocktail shaker, double strain, and serve in rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon peel.
Reyka brand ambassador Trevor Schneider created this recipe.
Kafka’s Folly
1 oz. Heritage absinthe
1 ½ oz. Vodka
¾ oz. St. Germain or other elderflower liqueur
½ oz. Egg white
Mint sprig
¼ oz. Simple syrup
½ oz. Lime juice
Matcha powder, for garnish
Add vodka, liqueur, absinthe and egg white in a shaker and dry shake without ice. Keep contents in a shaker or set aside. Muddle mint, simple syrup and lime juice in a shaker. Add egg white/alcohol mixture and ice and shake. Strain into a coupe glass and garnish with a dusting of matcha powder.
Mikayla Canslo, beverage director of The Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic, CT, created this recipe.
Irish Goodbye
1 ½ oz. McConnell’s Irish whisky
¾ oz. St George coffee liqueur
¾ oz. Averna Amaro
1 barspoon Licor 43
2-3 dashes El Guapo Chicory Pecan bitters
Orange oils
Stir all liquid ingredients with ice until chilled. Strain into glass. Express orange oils from peel and discard.
Brian Sandahl (@Heavymuddle) created this recipe.
Looking for more St. Patrick’s Day Drink ideas? Check out our holiday cocktail roundups from 2020 and 2019, plus 6 Ways Bars And Restaurants Can Cash In On St. Patrick’s Day.