Cape Codder
A Cape Codder is vodka and cranberry juice with a squeeze of lime: 50ml vodka and 120ml cranberry juice, built over ice in a highball, with a lime wedge squeezed over the top and dropped in. The lime is the difference between a cocktail and vodka in juice. Cranberry sold for drinking is sweetened, and the squeeze puts back the edge. The drink began as a sales idea. Ocean Spray, the Massachusetts cranberry growers’ cooperative, devised it in 1945 as the Red Devil; the Cape Codder name, after the cranberry-growing peninsula, dates from the early 1960s. It is the parent of the Seabreeze and the Bay Breeze, and a more distant relative of the Cosmopolitan. Each drink carries about 2.0 UK units. Check the label on the juice: the drink is only as good as the cranberry in it.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Lime wedge
Ingredients
50ml
A clean vodka at 37.5 to 40% ABV. It adds strength and very little flavour, which is why the juice and the lime decide the drink.
120ml
A cranberry juice drink with cranberry listed first. Pure cranberry is too sharp to drink this way; the sweetened kind works, as long as it is not mostly apple or grape.
1 wedge
One wedge, squeezed over the drink and dropped in. It is the only fresh acid in the glass and the part most often missed.
Instructions
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice.
Pour in the vodka, then the cranberry juice.
Squeeze a lime wedge over the top and drop it in.
Stir once, gently, and serve.
Our version
Published ratios of vodka to cranberry run from one to one and a half up to one to four. Ours is 50ml vodka to 120ml cranberry with a lime wedge squeezed in, which some recipes treat as optional and we do not.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Squeeze the lime and taste. Cranberry juice drink is sweetened, and with vodka alone it tastes flat and sugary. A wedge squeezed over the top and dropped in gives the drink the acid the carton is missing. If it still tastes sweet, squeeze a second wedge. Read the cranberry label before you buy. Some cartons are mostly apple or grape juice, with a little cranberry for the colour and the name. The drink needs cranberry as the main juice, sweetened enough to drink and still tart. Measure the vodka. Free-poured, a Cape Codder drifts quickly towards juice with a kick, or towards a much stronger drink than anyone intended.
Behind the Cape Codder
Flavour Profile
A Growers’ Cooperative Made It
Ocean Spray is a cooperative of cranberry growers, and in 1945 it put vodka and cranberry together under the name Red Devil. The aim was to sell more juice. The drink took the name Cape Codder in the early 1960s, after the peninsula where much of the crop is grown, and the name stayed with the recipe.
It is a plain case of a classic created by the people selling one of its ingredients, and none the worse for it.
Why the Lime Matters
Cranberry on its own is too tart and astringent to drink, so the juice sold for drinking is sweetened. Pour vodka into that and the result is sweet from start to finish, with nothing to cut it. Vodka adds strength and almost no flavour.
A lime wedge squeezed over the top supplies the acid. It is a small amount of juice, and it changes the finish from sugary to dry. That is why the lime belongs in the recipe and not only on the rim.
Choosing the Cranberry
Cranberry products vary widely. Some are cranberry with sugar; others are mostly apple or grape juice with cranberry added for colour and name. Read the ingredients and look for cranberry first. A juice with real tartness gives the drink its dry finish, and a blend padded with other fruit makes it sweet whatever you do with the lime.
The Cranberry Family
The Cape Codder and its relatives
Cape Codder
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml cranberry, a squeezed lime wedge
- How it is made
- Built over ice
- UK units
- 2.0
Seabreeze
- Spirit
- 40ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml cranberry, 30ml grapefruit
- How it is made
- Built over ice
- UK units
- 1.6
Cosmopolitan
- Spirit
- 40ml vodka, 15ml Cointreau
- Juice
- 30ml cranberry, 15ml lime
- How it is made
- Shaken, served in a coupe
- UK units
- 2.2
| Drink | Spirit | Juice | How it is made | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cape Codder | 50ml vodka | 120ml cranberry, a squeezed lime wedge | Built over ice | 2.0 |
| Seabreeze | 40ml vodka | 120ml cranberry, 30ml grapefruit | Built over ice | 1.6 |
| Cosmopolitan | 40ml vodka, 15ml Cointreau | 30ml cranberry, 15ml lime | Shaken, served in a coupe | 2.2 |
Add grapefruit and you have a Seabreeze, drier and slightly bitter. Pineapple instead makes a Bay Breeze, softer and sweeter. The Woo Woo adds peach schnapps, and the Cosmopolitan shakes vodka and cranberry with Cointreau and fresh lime into a short drink with a sour’s balance.
How Strong It Is
With 50ml of vodka at 40% ABV, a Cape Codder carries about 2.0 UK units, two pub singles in a long glass. The juice hides it well, so count the glasses rather than trusting the taste.
Make it at home
The Spirit
VodkaVodka is spirit made from a farmed crop, usually grain or potatoes, distilled and refined so that the taste of that crop is deliberately reduced. Its legal minimum is 37.5% ABV, most bottles are 40%, and it may not be given a predominant flavour, which separates it from flavoured vodka and from gin. In a mixed drink it adds strength and body while the other ingredients carry the taste.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Cape Codder?
Where does the name Cape Codder come from?
How strong is a Cape Codder?
What is the difference between a Cape Codder and a Seabreeze?
How much cranberry to vodka in a Cape Codder?
Should a Cape Codder have lime?
Is a Cape Codder the same as a Cosmopolitan?
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Cosmopolitan
A Cosmopolitan is 40ml of citrus vodka, 15ml of Cointreau, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 30ml of cranberry juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with an orange twist. About 2.2 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. Who invented it is disputed. Gary Regan credited Cheryl Cook, a bartender at the Strand in South Beach, Miami, with a version in 1985 or 1986. The recipe that spread is usually credited to Toby Cecchini at the Odeon in New York, made with Absolut Citron, Cointreau, fresh lime and cranberry; accounts date it to 1988 or 1989. Under the colour it is a sour: vodka, orange liqueur and lime, with cranberry for tint and a little extra acid. Made with fresh lime and served very cold, it is tart and dry, a long way from the sweet pink drink of its reputation.
Woo Woo
A Woo Woo is 40ml of vodka, 20ml of peach schnapps and 90ml of cranberry juice, built over ice in a highball and stirred once, finished with the juice of a lime wedge and the wedge itself. About 2.0 UK units. It came out of the peach schnapps boom of the mid-1980s, alongside Sex on the Beach and the Fuzzy Navel. Of the three it is the plainest: no orange juice, only peach sweetness against the sharpness of cranberry. Two parts vodka to one of schnapps keeps the peach in its place, and the cranberry does the balancing. A free hand with the schnapps is how most Woo Woos go wrong. Everything should be cold before it goes in, because there is no shake to chill it.
Greyhound
A Greyhound is 50ml of vodka and 120ml of fresh grapefruit juice in a highball full of ice, stirred once and garnished with a grapefruit wheel. About 2.0 UK units. Salt half the rim and the same drink becomes a Salty Dog. Without the salt, nothing softens the grapefruit’s bitterness, and that bitterness is the point: this is a sharp, bracing drink, nearer an aperitif than a Screwdriver. Gin was its first spirit. A 1945 article in Harper’s Magazine describes gin, sugar and canned grapefruit juice served as a greyhound at the Post House restaurants in Greyhound bus terminals. Vodka took over after the Second World War, and gin at the same 50ml still gives a drier glass with more perfume.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026