Grasshopper
The Grasshopper is New Orleans’ green dessert: born by the standard account at Tujague’s in the French Quarter around 1918, second prize in a New York competition and first prize in posterity. Green crème de menthe and white crème de cacao share cream in equal thirds, the colour named it, the South adopted it, and the 1950s supper clubs canonised it. The build is the Alexander constitution in mint dress, with one significant difference: the two liqueurs take the base spirit’s place between them, so there is no spirit anywhere in the glass at all. It is the family’s first all-liqueur member, and gentle by construction rather than by any act of restraint. Green crème de menthe is constitutional here, which makes this the one drink where the usual preference for the white bottle inverts. The colour is the name, and any other combination of the two bottles muddies the grasshopper into a khaki brown.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Mint Leaf or nothing green beyond the glass
Ingredients
20ml
Green, constitutionally. This is the one drink where the usual preference for the white bottle inverts, because the colour is the name and the name is the drink.
20ml
The chocolate half, and white rather than brown so the green stays true. The brown bottle turns the whole glass a muddy khaki for no gain in flavour.
20ml
The family third, shaken to silk. Single cream and a genuinely hard shake, because cream that is merely cold rather than aerated leaves the drink flat.
Instructions
Add the crème de menthe, crème de cacao and cream to a shaker with ice.
Shake very hard for 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled Nick & Nora.
Float a mint leaf if dressing it.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
Green menthe and white cacao: the colour arithmetic is the drink, and inverting either bottle ruins it. Crème de menthe comes in green and white, and crème de cacao comes in white and brown, so there are four possible combinations and exactly one of them produces a grasshopper. Green menthe with brown cacao gives a muddy khaki that looks like a mistake; white menthe with either gives a drink with no reason to carry the name. After that it is the Alexander family’s standing law: equal thirds and a genuinely violent shake, because cream needs real aeration to turn silky rather than merely cold. Twelve hard seconds, then double strain so nothing gritty reaches the glass.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Philip Guichet of Tujague’s built it for a 1918 New York cocktail competition, by the house’s own account, taking second prize there and bringing the drink home to the French Quarter, where it never left.
The supper-club decades spread it north through the middle of the century, and the ice-cream blender variants followed close behind. The origin bar still pours the shaken original, which is unusual: very few drinks of that age can be drunk in the room they were invented in, and fewer still made the way they were first made.
The All-Liqueur Thirds
No spirit enters the glass at all. The two crèmes split the base between them, which makes this the Alexander family’s first all-liqueur member and considerably gentler than any of its relatives by construction rather than by intention.
That has a practical consequence: at around fifteen per cent alcohol it is a genuinely low-strength drink dressed as a proper cocktail, which is why supper clubs could serve it after a long dinner without anybody minding. The frozen ice-cream reading beloved across the American Midwest goes further in the same direction and is a legitimate and quite different dessert.
The Colour Arithmetic
Green menthe plus white cacao equals the grasshopper, and every other combination fails visibly.
Crème de menthe is sold in green and white; crème de cacao in white and brown. Green menthe with brown cacao gives a muddy khaki that looks like an accident. White menthe with either produces a perfectly pleasant mint chocolate drink with no reason at all to be called this. The green is doing the naming and the white is protecting it, which is a rare case of colour genuinely dictating a recipe.
Mint and Chocolate
The pairing is so familiar from confectionery that it is easy to miss how well it works in a glass, and the reason is menthol.
Mint reads as cold to the palate independently of temperature, and cacao reads as rich and slightly bitter. Set against each other over cream, the mint keeps the chocolate from settling into sweetness while the chocolate stops the mint reading as toothpaste. It is the after-dinner mint as a drink, and it is considerably better than that description makes it sound.
How to Serve It
Up, cold and unapologetically green, in a chilled Nick & Nora, after dinner in the slot an after-dinner mint would occupy.
A single mint leaf floated on the surface is the only dressing it needs, and it does real work on the nose. Serve it to anybody who assumes a green drink cannot be serious, which is most people, and let a properly made one make the argument. Tujague’s has been doing exactly that for a century.
The Spirit
Crème de MentheA sweet mint liqueur sold in two colours that taste identical, so the choice between white and green is a decision about how the finished drink should look. Crème refers to the sugar content rather than to any dairy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where was the Grasshopper invented?
Tujague’s in New Orleans, around 1918, by the house’s own account. Philip Guichet built it for a New York cocktail competition where it took second prize, then brought it home to the French Quarter, where it stayed.
Why green crème de menthe?
Because the name is the colour. Green menthe with white cacao is the drink’s arithmetic, and it is the one case where the usual preference for a white bottle inverts. Any other pairing turns the glass a muddy khaki.
Is there a frozen version?
Yes, and it is beloved across the American Midwest: the same flavours blended with ice cream. It is entirely legitimate and a noticeably richer, different dessert. The shaken original is the constitution the frozen one departs from.
How strong is it?
Not very, which is part of the appeal. With no base spirit at all and two liqueurs splitting that role, it lands around fifteen per cent, which is why supper clubs could pour it after a long dinner without anybody minding.
Master the Techniques
You Might Also Like
Golden Cadillac
The Golden Cadillac is a Grasshopper with Galliano where the crème de menthe should be, and the swap turns a cold after-dinner mint into something closer to crème brûlée. Galliano's vanilla and soft anise sit against white crème de cacao and cream in equal thirds, and the drink comes out gold, thick and unapologetically a dessert. Its origin is unusually well documented for a drink of this kind. It was made in 1952 at Poor Red's, a barbecue roadhouse in El Dorado, California, for a couple who had just bought a gold Cadillac. The bar kept making them, and kept making them, and ended up one of the largest single accounts for Galliano anywhere in the world. That is the whole appeal. It is not a subtle drink and it was never trying to be. It is a small-town bar's celebration cocktail that outlived the celebration by seventy years and is still being shaken in the same room.
Alexander
The Alexander is the cream family’s founding document, and it surprises most drinkers: the original is gin. Gin, white crème de cacao and cream in equal thirds, out of the American bars of the 1910s with the contested paternity typical of the period. Troy Alexander at Rector’s is among the claimants and nobody has ever settled it. The brandy version conquered later and took the qualified name with it, which is how the ancestor ended up sounding like a variation on its own child. Equal thirds is the constitution, and juniper against cream is the founding argument: botanical sharpness cutting the dairy where cognac would simply join it. It drinks lighter and stranger than the famous one. Where a Brandy Alexander is plush and unambiguously a pudding, this reads closer to an aperitif in a dessert dress, which is the pair’s whole division of labour and a good reason to keep the older bottle in play.
Silk Stocking
The Silk Stocking is tequila’s dessert secret, and almost nobody knows it exists. Blanco folded into cream and white crème de cacao with a grenadine blush, dusted with cinnamon and served up. It comes out of the mid-century guides, from a period when the range of what tequila could do was still being mapped, and somebody thought to try it in the Alexander’s frame. The answer, improbably, was yes. Spirit, cacao and cream is the Alexander family’s constitution, and blanco’s pepper does what gin’s juniper does in the original: it cuts the richness and stops the whole thing sliding into a milkshake. Cognac in a Brandy Alexander joins the cream. Tequila argues with it. The grenadine is this version’s own signature, tinting the silk pink and laying a pomegranate seam underneath the cocoa. No author has ever been attached to it, which is a shame, because it is the best after-dinner argument tequila has.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
Enjoyed This Recipe?
Explore our full collection of cocktails and discover your next favorite
Browse All Cocktails