Green Swizzle
A Green Swizzle is 45ml of light white rum, 10ml of unaged Jamaican overproof white rum, 5ml of absinthe, 25ml of falernum, 5ml of green crème de menthe and 15ml of lime juice, poured into a Collins glass over crushed ice and swizzled. It gets three dashes of aromatic bitters, a lime wedge and mint sprigs. About 3.2 UK units by our strengths. Difford’s Guide prints 3.1. The recipe is Difford’s version of a drink that was popular in Caribbean hotel bars between the 1890s and the 1930s. There was never one fixed recipe. It is a tall, minty, rum swizzle with a pale green tint.
Glassware: Collins Glass
Garnish: Three dashes of aromatic bitters over the ice cap, Lime wedge on the rim and Mint sprigs a small bouquet standing in the ice
Ingredients
Instructions
Chill a Collins glass and squeeze the lime the day you serve it.
Pour the rums, absinthe, falernum, crème de menthe and lime juice into the glass.
Fill the glass two thirds full with crushed ice.
Swizzle with a swizzle stick, spinning it between your palms, until the glass frosts.
Top with more crushed ice.
Dash the aromatic bitters three times over the ice cap and add the lime wedge and mint sprigs.
Serve with a straw.
Source: Difford's Guide (recipe 915, measures, method and garnish as printed (45ml light white rum, 10ml unaged Jamaican overproof white rum, 5ml absinthe, 25ml falernum, 5ml green crème de menthe, 15ml lime juice, poured into a chilled Collins glass, two-thirds crushed ice, swizzled, topped with ice, 3 dashes aromatic bitters, lime wedge, mint sprigs, straw); history as printed). Last checked 1 November 2026.
Expert Tip
Use a small jigger for the absinthe and the crème de menthe. At 5ml each they tint and flavour the drink, and extra turns it sweet and murky. Keep the crushed ice fine. It takes cold quickly and dilutes the drink as you swizzle. Do not shake it. The swizzle is what builds the frosting on the glass.
Behind the Green Swizzle
Flavour Profile
A hotel-bar swizzle that never had one recipe
Difford’s Guide says the Green Swizzle was popular from the 1890s to the 1930s, when the grand hotels of the Caribbean, such as the Queen’s Park Hotel in Trinidad, were in their prime. Its fame owes something to P. G. Wodehouse, whose story The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy has Bertie Wooster praising it after a few at a bar at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.
Difford’s quotes David Wondrich, in the revised 2015 edition of his book Imbibe, saying no definitive recipe is possible. There are versions on rum, whiskey, Old Tom gin and genever. Difford’s adds that the drink was originally made green with dashes of absinthe bitters, and that crème de menthe is a later habit. Its own recipe uses both.
White rum, falernum and a pale green tint
Difford’s chooses white rum, because aged rum would muddy the pale green. The recipe asks for a light white rum aged one to four years and filtered, with a splash of unaged Jamaican overproof rum for funk.
Absinthe stands in for the wormwood bitters of the original. Falernum adds lime zest, clove and ginger, and green crème de menthe supplies colour and a cool mint edge. Lime juice holds them together.
Swizzled, not shaken
Everything goes into the glass. Crushed ice fills it two thirds of the way, then you swizzle, which means churning the drink with a swizzle stick spun between your palms, and top with more ice. Bitters go over the ice cap and a straw completes it.
The Green Swizzle beside three swizzles
Green Swizzle
- Base
- White rum with overproof rum
- Sweetener
- Falernum
- Glass
- Collins
Queen’s Park Swizzle
- Base
- Demerara rum
- Sweetener
- Demerara syrup
- Glass
- Highball
Rum Swizzle
- Base
- Black Seal rum
- Sweetener
- Falernum
- Glass
- Highball
Chartreuse Swizzle
- Base
- Green Chartreuse
- Sweetener
- Falernum
- Glass
- Collins
| Drink | Base | Sweetener | Glass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green Swizzle | White rum with overproof rum | Falernum | Collins |
| Queen’s Park Swizzle | Demerara rum | Demerara syrup | Highball |
| Rum Swizzle | Black Seal rum | Falernum | Highball |
| Chartreuse Swizzle | Green Chartreuse | Falernum | Collins |
The Queen’s Park Swizzle is the Trinidad hotel’s own drink, and the Chartreuse Swizzle is the other green one.
Make it at home
The Spirit
White RumWhite rum is clear rum, usually bottled at 40% ABV, either unaged or rested in oak and then charcoal-filtered back to clear. It is the light, dry rum of the Daiquiri, the Mojito and the Cuba Libre, and the rum most of our recipes mean when they want rum that sits under lime rather than over it.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Green Swizzle?
Where does the Green Swizzle come from?
How strong is a Green Swizzle?
Why is it green?
What rum does a Green Swizzle use?
What is a swizzle stick?
Can I use a different base spirit?
Can I serve it to a group?
Sources.
Correct as of 1 November 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Green Swizzle” (recipe 915: rums, absinthe, falernum, crème de menthe, lime, Collins glass, crushed ice, swizzled, bitters, lime wedge and mint; 3.1 units; history: Caribbean hotel bars 1890s to 1930s, Wodehouse, Wondrich on the lack of a definitive recipe).
- NHS, “Calculating alcohol units” (the 14-units-a-week guidance and the units calculation).
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Queen’s Park Swizzle
A Queen’s Park Swizzle is 60ml of Demerara rum, 22.5ml of fresh lime juice and 15ml of demerara syrup over eight pressed mint leaves, swizzled with crushed ice in a highball until the glass frosts, then topped with more ice, four dashes of Angostura and a mint bouquet. About 2.5 UK units. It takes its name from the Queen’s Park Hotel in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The Oxford Companion says it first saw print in the 1946 Trader Vic’s Book of Food and Drink as a drink from the Queen’s Park Hotel in Trinidad, and that its creation was likely between 1933 and 1938. No bartender is named with it. Difford’s Guide says Trader Vic called it, in that book, “the most delightful form of anesthesia given out today”. The bitters go on last and are left alone. Drunk through a straw from the bottom of the glass, it opens on lime, mint and rum and closes on the Angostura as the bitters work down through the ice.
Rum Swizzle
A Rum Swizzle is 60ml of black rum, 15ml of falernum, 45ml each of fresh pineapple and orange juice, 22.5ml of fresh lime juice and two dashes of Angostura, swizzled over crushed ice in a highball until the glass frosts, then topped with more crushed ice and finished with an orange slice and a cherry. About 2.6 UK units. It is Bermuda’s swizzle, often called the island’s national drink. The Swizzle Inn, which dates the drink to 1932 by its own account, is the bar most tied to it, and on the island it is usually mixed by the jug. Ours is a single glass on Gosling’s Black Seal, the Bermudian black rum. Where Trinidad’s Queen’s Park Swizzle is mint, bitters and rum, Bermuda’s is fruit: pineapple and orange folded through dark rum, with the falernum’s clove and lime holding the juices together.
Chartreuse Swizzle
A Chartreuse Swizzle is 45ml of green Chartreuse, 30ml of fresh pineapple juice, 22.5ml of lime juice and 15ml of falernum, swizzled over pebble ice in a tall glass until it frosts, topped with more ice and finished with a slapped mint sprig and fresh nutmeg. About 2.6 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures. Marco Dionysos created it in San Francisco in 2003 for a cocktail competition run by Chartreuse, and won, by Punch’s account. Green Chartreuse, 55% ABV on its maker’s site and intensely herbal, is usually poured by the bar spoon; here it is the base, and pineapple, lime and falernum are what make that work. The swizzle matters as much as the bottles. Churning pebble ice through the drink chills and dilutes it fast, and that water turns 45ml of strong liqueur into something long and cold. Falernum often carries almond, so read its label first if a guest has a nut allergy.
Mojito
A Mojito is 45ml of white rum, 20ml of fresh lime juice, two teaspoons of white cane sugar and six sprigs of mint, built in a highball. The mint is pressed gently with the sugar, the glass is filled with cubed ice, the rum and lime go in, and 75 to 100ml of chilled soda water tops it. About 1.8 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures. The IBA only says to top up with soda, so the 75 to 100ml is ours. Press the mint once or twice and stop. Torn leaves make the drink bitter and grassy, and that, more often than the rum, is why a Mojito disappoints. The sugar grains help: they bruise the surface of the leaf as you press, and the lime then carries the oil through the glass.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 1 November 2026