Screwdriver
A Screwdriver is 50ml of vodka and 120ml of fresh orange juice, built over cubed ice in a highball, stirred once and finished with an orange slice. About 2.0 UK units. It is not on the IBA’s current list. Older IBA lists gave 50ml of vodka to 100ml of orange juice; our extra 20ml of juice makes a longer, softer drink. The Oxford Companion, in an entry by Robert Simonson, calls the drink a product of the Second World War, when American troops and technicians in places such as China and Turkey cut neutral spirit with orange juice, and says the name first turns up in Ankara in 1943, apparently coined by interned American airmen. The usual explanation, that someone stirred the drink with a screwdriver for want of a spoon, has no source attached. With two ingredients, the juice decides the drink. Squeeze it the same day. Carton juice is heat-treated and loses much of the fresh fruit’s scent, and there is nothing else in the glass to make up for it.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Orange slice
Ingredients
50ml
Unflavoured, at 40% ABV. It adds strength rather than flavour, so a clean mid-priced bottle does the job.
120ml
Squeezed the same day, from two or three oranges. It is most of the drink, so it decides the flavour.
Instructions
Squeeze the orange juice the same day.
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice and add the vodka.
Top with the orange juice and stir once.
Garnish with an orange slice.
Our version
50ml of vodka to 120ml of fresh orange juice over ice, a longer drink than the 50ml to 100ml older IBA lists gave. The Screwdriver is not on the IBA’s current list.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Squeeze the oranges. Two or three make 120ml, depending on size, and it is the only change that makes a real difference to this drink. Measure the vodka. With nothing else to balance it, a heavy pour tastes hot and thin, and a light one is just juice. Fill the glass with ice before anything goes in. A half-filled glass melts faster and the juice turns dull and watery. One stir is enough; there is nothing to mix.
Behind the Screwdriver
Flavour Profile
Istanbul, 1949
The Oxford Companion finds the name first in Ankara, Turkey, in 1943, apparently coined by interned American airmen.
Why a screwdriver is not recorded. The story about stirring with a tool for want of a spoon is told often and attributed to no one. What is better documented is the timing: the Oxford Companion says returning servicemen brought the recipe home just in time for the vodka boom, that the drink was featured prominently in Smirnoff’s advertising, and that in the 1960s it became the foundation of later highballs such as the Harvey Wallbanger.
The Juice Decides It
Orange juice is more than two thirds of the glass. Fresh juice brings acidity, a little pulp and the scent of the peel oils pressed out with it. Carton juice is heat-treated so it keeps, and loses much of that scent on the way; what remains is mostly sugar and acid.
Vodka adds strength and almost no flavour, so it cannot cover for a dull juice. That makes the Screwdriver an unusually honest test of an orange.
The Ratio
Fifty millilitres of vodka to 120 of juice is a little under one to two and a half. The older IBA ratio, one to two, is shorter and stronger in taste. Pour more vodka than ours and the drink thins and turns hot, because nothing in the glass absorbs it: no sugar, no bitters, no second spirit.
If you want a longer drink, add juice rather than cutting the vodka.
One Glass, Several Drinks
Our Screwdriver beside the older IBA measures and two relations
Screwdriver (ours)
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml fresh orange
- Extra
- None
- UK units
- About 2.0
Screwdriver (older IBA lists)
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 100ml orange
- Extra
- None
- UK units
- About 2.0
Harvey Wallbanger
- Spirit
- 45ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml fresh orange
- Extra
- 15ml Galliano floated on top
- UK units
- About 2.4
Greyhound
- Spirit
- 50ml vodka
- Juice
- 120ml fresh grapefruit
- Extra
- None
- UK units
- About 2.0
| Drink | Spirit | Juice | Extra | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screwdriver (ours) | 50ml vodka | 120ml fresh orange | None | About 2.0 |
| Screwdriver (older IBA lists) | 50ml vodka | 100ml orange | None | About 2.0 |
| Harvey Wallbanger | 45ml vodka | 120ml fresh orange | 15ml Galliano floated on top | About 2.4 |
| Greyhound | 50ml vodka | 120ml fresh grapefruit | None | About 2.0 |
How to Serve It
Cold and tall. Fill the highball to the top with ice, then vodka, then juice, then one stir, and an orange slice on the rim. It does not keep, so build it when it is wanted. Brunch is where it is most often asked for.
For a Galliano float on top, make a Harvey Wallbanger; for grapefruit in place of orange, a Greyhound; for sloe gin, Southern Comfort and Galliano with the orange, a Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall.
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. Under the retained Regulation (EC) 110/2008 its minimum is 37.5% ABV and it may not be given a predominant flavour, which separates it from flavoured vodka and from gin; our recipes count it at 40%. In a mixed drink it adds strength and body while the other ingredients carry the taste.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in a Screwdriver?
Why is it called a Screwdriver?
Is the Screwdriver an IBA cocktail?
Does the orange juice have to be fresh?
Which vodka should I use?
What is a Harvey Wallbanger?
Can I make Screwdrivers for a group?
How strong is a Screwdriver?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Robert Simonson), “Screwdriver” (secondary source: a Second World War drink; the name first in Ankara in 1943, apparently coined by interned American airmen, etymology never adequately explained; the vodka boom and Smirnoff advertising; foundation of the Harvey Wallbanger).
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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. Difford’s Guide’s earliest Greyhound recipe, from Stanley M. Jones’s 1977 Complete Barguide, is a Salty Dog without the salt, made with vodka. The Oxford Companion says some Salty Dog recipes call for gin, and the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 prints a Colonial Cocktail of dry gin, grape fruit juice and maraschino. Gin at the same 50ml gives a drier glass with more perfume.
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 Oxford Companion says the drink was likely the work of the bartender Donato “Duke” Antone, who may have made it as early as the early 1950s at the Black Watch in Hollywood, calling it the Duke Screwdriver, and that McKesson Imports, Galliano’s importer, built a marketing campaign around it in 1969. It says George Bednar of McKesson had the New York marketer Bill Young create a cartoon surfer called Harvey, with the catchphrase “My name is Harvey Wallbanger and I can be made”. 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.
Tequila Sunrise
A Tequila Sunrise is 45ml of blanco tequila and 90ml of fresh orange juice over ice in a highball, with 15ml of grenadine added last, which sinks and shades the glass from red to orange. It is served unstirred, with a straw. About 1.8 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures. Difford’s Guide credits the version most people know to Bobby Lozoff, then a 22-year-old bartender at the Trident in Sausalito, California, who created it in 1970. At a party there to open the Rolling Stones’ 1972 American tour, Difford’s says, Mick Jagger loved the one Lozoff made him. An older Tequila Sunrise, created around 1930 at the Agua Caliente resort in Tijuana by the Oxford Companion’s account, was a different drink. Fresh orange juice and a grenadine made from pomegranate turn it from a sweet party drink into a bright, simple long one.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026