Sex on the Beach
Sex on the Beach is 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps, 40ml fresh orange juice and 40ml cranberry juice, built over ice in a highball and garnished with half an orange slice. It works out at about 2.0 UK units, made to the measures on the IBA’s Contemporary Classics list. Its history is disputed. VinePair reports the story usually told: a Fort Lauderdale bar in 1987, at a distributor’s contest to sell a new peach schnapps. Mental Floss calls that story probably untrue and finds a recipe in a 1982 American Bartenders School book. Equal orange and cranberry is what holds it together. Orange alone with peach schnapps is soft and sweet, cranberry alone is thin and sharp, and between them the drink stays upright.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Orange slice
Ingredients
40ml
Clean, unflavoured vodka at 40% ABV, for strength and a little dryness; a flavoured one only brings more sugar.
20ml
Clear peach liqueur, usually around 20% ABV, and the main source of sugar here, so measure it; free-poured, it takes over.
40ml
Juiced that day for body and the sweet side of the fruit; carton juice makes the drink taste of concentrate.
40ml
A carton of cranberry juice drink is fine. It brings the acid, the colour and the dryness that stop the orange and peach running sweet.
Instructions
Squeeze the orange juice the same day, ideally just before you build.
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice.
Add the vodka, peach schnapps and orange juice, and stir once.
Pour the cranberry juice slowly over the back of a bar spoon so it drifts down through the orange.
Garnish with half an orange slice.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification, with the cranberry poured last for the gradient; method ours). Last checked 9 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Squeeze the orange. Carton orange juice is where most of the cloying sweetness people remember comes from, and fresh juice is the single change that improves the drink most. Cranberry from a carton is fine. Hold the schnapps at 20ml. If the drink tastes flat, it wants more cranberry or a squeeze of lime, not more schnapps. For the sunset look, build the vodka, schnapps and orange first and pour the cranberry last over the back of a bar spoon so it drifts down through the orange. The IBA builds everything at once over ice, and the drink tastes the same either way.
Behind the Sex on the Beach
Flavour Profile
The Origin
Mental Floss suggests that a bartender made Sex on the Beach by combining a Fuzzy Navel (orange juice and peach schnapps) with a Cape Codder (vodka and cranberry juice with a lime), and the Oxford Companion describes the standard Sex on the Beach as a Woo Woo with orange juice.
VinePair tells the usual story: a Fort Lauderdale bar, spring break 1987, a distributor’s contest to sell a new peach schnapps, and a bartender, Ted Pizio of Confetti’s, who named his drink for the spring-break crowds. His version used grenadine rather than cranberry. Mental Floss reports a recipe with peach schnapps in a book published by the American Bartenders School in 1982, five years earlier, and calls the story probably untrue.
The Juice Balance
Equal measures of orange and cranberry do the balancing. Orange with peach schnapps is soft and sweet; cranberry is thin and sharp; together each covers the other’s weakness.
At 40ml each against 20ml of schnapps, the drink is shorter and drier than many bar versions. A flat-tasting glass wants cranberry or a squeeze of lime, never more schnapps.
The Schnapps Family
Sex on the Beach and the Woo Woo compared
Sex on the Beach (IBA)
- Spec
- 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps, 40ml fresh orange, 40ml cranberry
- Strength
- About 2.0 UK units
Woo Woo
- Spec
- 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps, 90ml cranberry
- Strength
- About 2.0 UK units
| Drink | Spec | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| Sex on the Beach (IBA) | 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps, 40ml fresh orange, 40ml cranberry | About 2.0 UK units |
| Woo Woo | 40ml vodka, 20ml peach schnapps, 90ml cranberry | About 2.0 UK units |
Without the orange, the drink becomes a Woo Woo, sharper and simpler, with all of its length in cranberry.
Go the other way, dropping the vodka and the cranberry, and what is left is a Fuzzy Navel: peach schnapps lengthened with orange juice. All three live or die on whether the orange was squeezed.
The Reputation
Nothing in the IBA spec explains the reputation. The way it was often poured does: carton orange, sweetened cranberry, a heavy free pour of schnapps and the cheapest vodka, in a plastic glass.
Every one of those choices pushes it sweeter. Made to the measures with fresh orange, it is a tart, fruity highball.
How to Serve It
Tall, over plenty of ice, with half an orange slice, and outdoors if the weather allows.
For a crowd, mix the vodka, schnapps and orange by the jug and chill it, then pour each glass over ice and add the cranberry to order. Each drink keeps its gradient.
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
Why is it called Sex on the Beach?
What is the difference from a Woo Woo?
Can I make it less sweet?
Why pour the cranberry last?
How strong is Sex on the Beach?
Is there an alcohol-free version?
Is Sex on the Beach an IBA cocktail?
Sources.
Checked between 18 October and 19 October 2026.
- VinePair, “The Story Behind the Sex on the Beach” (secondary source: 1987, National Distribution contest in Fort Lauderdale, Ted Pizio of Confetti, original recipe with grenadine; Mental Floss’s 1982 recipe).
- Mental Floss, “Cocktail Chemistry: What’s the Right Way to Make a Sex on the Beach?” (secondary source: 1982 American Bartenders School recipe with peach schnapps; story “probably untrue”; Fuzzy Navel plus Cape Codder).
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Rosie Schaap), “Sex on the Beach” (secondary source: origins in the late 1970s or early 1980s, first surfaces in 1986; vodka, cranberry and orange juice with a third as much peach schnapps, a Woo Woo with orange juice).
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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. The Oxford Companion says it became popular in the mid-1980s, like the Fuzzy Navel and Sex on the Beach, after peach schnapps was launched in the American market, and describes the standard Sex on the Beach as a Woo Woo with orange juice. The Woo Woo is the plainest of the family: 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.
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026