Fluffy Duck
A Fluffy Duck is 30ml advocaat, 30ml gin, 15ml triple sec and 30ml fresh orange juice, shaken hard and strained into an ice-filled highball, then topped with 60ml soda water and stirred once, gently. It is garnished with orange and a cherry. About 2.3 UK units. It contains egg. An advertisement for the Cauldron Bubbles restaurant in Darlinghurst, Sydney, announced the drink in 1971. That first version mixed gin, Bacardi, vodka, advocaat and orange juice. By 1985 Helen Spence’s Cocktails for Two gave a build of gin, advocaat, Cointreau, orange juice and soda, close to this one. Advocaat, the Dutch egg liqueur, is thick and sweet. On its own it is closer to custard than to a drink. Gin cuts it, orange sharpens it, and the soda turns it light enough to drink tall.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Orange slice and Maraschino cherry
Ingredients
30ml
Egg yolk, sugar and spirit in the Dutch style, at about 17% ABV. Thick and sweet, it needs a hard shake to loosen. Contains egg.
30ml
A London dry gin at 40% ABV. Its juniper cuts the richness of the advocaat, as gin does with cream in an Alexander.
15ml
Cointreau or another triple sec. It adds orange peel and some sweetness; keep it at 15ml, because the glass is sweet already.
30ml
Squeezed the same day. It brings the only real acid in the drink; carton juice adds sugar instead.
60ml
Cold and freshly opened. Added last and stirred once, it lightens the shaken advocaat without flattening it.
Instructions
Shake the advocaat bottle, then add the advocaat, gin, triple sec and orange juice to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Strain into a highball glass filled with ice.
Top with the soda water and stir once, gently.
Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry.
Expert Tip
Shake the advocaat bottle before you measure, because it settles. Then shake the drink hard, all the way to 12 seconds. Advocaat is heavy, and only a hard shake loosens it and fills it with air, which gives the soda something to lift. Add the soda last and stir once, slowly. A proper stir knocks the air out of the advocaat and the bubbles out of the soda, and the drink goes flat. Squeeze the orange. Advocaat and triple sec are both sweet, and fresh juice is all the sharpness the glass gets.
Behind the Fluffy Duck
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The Fluffy Duck is Australian. In 1971 the Cauldron Bubbles restaurant in Darlinghurst, Sydney, advertised it: “We have just perfected a beautiful cocktail, which we call the Fluffy Duck.”
That first drink mixed gin, Bacardi, vodka, advocaat and fresh orange juice. Later recipes dropped the rum and vodka and added orange liqueur and soda, and by 1985 Helen Spence’s Cocktails for Two gave a build close to ours. A second Fluffy Duck, of white rum, advocaat and cream, shares the name.
Cutting and Lifting
Advocaat needs two things done to it. On its own it is thick and sweet, nearer custard than a drink.
Gin cuts it: juniper and dry botanicals give the richness something to push against. Soda lifts it, turning a heavy base into something you can drink tall. The hard shake comes first, because cold, aerated advocaat takes the soda far better than thick advocaat does.
Two Kinds of Orange
The orange arrives twice. Fresh juice brings acid and brightness; triple sec brings orange peel and sugar.
Nothing else in the glass is sour, which is why the juice has to be fresh. Keep the triple sec at 15ml. Any more and the drink tips into sweetness halfway down.
The Advocaat Pair
Advocaat has two well-known long drinks, and side by side they show how far the same bottle can move.
Advocaat long drinks
Fluffy Duck
- Advocaat
- 30ml
- Spirit
- 30ml gin, 15ml triple sec
- Other
- 30ml orange juice, 60ml soda
- UK units
- 2.3
Snowball
- Advocaat
- 50ml
- Spirit
- None
- Other
- 10ml lime, 120ml lemonade
- UK units
- 0.9
Fluffy Duck, rum version
- Advocaat
- 30ml
- Spirit
- 30ml white rum
- Other
- 10ml cream, floated
- UK units
- 1.7
| Drink | Advocaat | Spirit | Other | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fluffy Duck | 30ml | 30ml gin, 15ml triple sec | 30ml orange juice, 60ml soda | 2.3 |
| Snowball | 50ml | None | 10ml lime, 120ml lemonade | 0.9 |
| Fluffy Duck, rum version | 30ml | 30ml white rum | 10ml cream, floated | 1.7 |
The Snowball is the lighter and sharper of the pair. The Fluffy Duck carries more alcohol and a dry gin edge under the custard.
How to Serve It
Serve it long, in an ice-filled highball, dressed with orange and a cherry, as soon as the soda goes in, while the head is still light.
Advocaat contains egg. Ask before you make one for a guest.
Make it at home
The Spirit
GinGin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. GB law requires juniper to lead the taste and sets a 37.5% ABV floor; the usual bottle is 40%. The law grades it by how the flavour gets in, from plain gin through distilled gin to London gin, and it carries the Martini, the Negroni and the Gin and Tonic.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Fluffy Duck?
How strong is a Fluffy Duck?
What is advocaat?
Does a Fluffy Duck contain egg?
Why gin with advocaat?
How is it different from a Snowball?
Why has mine gone flat?
Is there a rum Fluffy Duck?
You Might Also Like
Snowball
A Snowball is 50ml advocaat and 10ml fresh lime juice, shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and strained into an ice-filled highball, with 120ml of sharp sparkling lemonade poured over. A lime wheel and a cherry go on top. It carries about 0.9 UK units, a light drink. Advocaat is a Dutch liqueur of egg yolk, sugar and brandy, thick enough to pour like custard. The lime is what cuts through it: fresh juice, not lime cordial, which would add sugar where the drink needs acid. Who first mixed a Snowball is not recorded; it is remembered as a household drink of the British Christmas rather than a bar drink, which may be why its history went unwritten.
Harvey Wallbanger
A Harvey Wallbanger is 45ml of vodka and 120ml of fresh orange juice over ice in a highball, stirred once, with 15ml of Galliano floated on top over the back of a spoon and an orange slice and a cherry to finish. About 2.4 UK units. It is a Screwdriver with a vanilla and anise float. The recipe is usually credited to Donato “Duke” Antone, a Hollywood bartender, perhaps as early as the 1950s. Its fame came later, from McKesson Imports, which brought Galliano into the United States: George Bednar, its marketing man, had the artist Bill Young draw a cartoon Harvey, and Galliano sales climbed through the 1970s on the back of him. The float is what makes it more than sweetened orange juice. The first sips taste of Galliano, the middle is orange and vodka, and the end is close to a plain Screwdriver.
Golden Cadillac
A Golden Cadillac is 30ml of Galliano, 30ml of white crème de cacao and 30ml of cold single cream, shaken very hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass. No garnish. About 2.0 UK units. It contains dairy. It is a Grasshopper with Galliano in place of the crème de menthe. The vanilla and soft anise of the Galliano meet chocolate and cream in equal thirds, and the drink comes out gold, thick and plainly a dessert. It comes from Poor Red’s, a barbecue restaurant in El Dorado, California, where by the bar’s own account it was first mixed in 1952 for a couple with a new gold Cadillac.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026