Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall
A Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall is 25ml vodka, 15ml sloe gin and 15ml Southern Comfort over ice in a highball, topped with 90ml fresh orange juice and stirred once, then finished with 15ml Galliano floated on top over the back of a spoon. An orange slice and a cherry go on the rim. About 2.5 UK units. The name is the recipe. Slow is sloe gin, Comfortable is Southern Comfort, Screw is the orange juice of a Screwdriver, and Against the Wall is the Galliano float from a Harvey Wallbanger. Difford’s Guide places the family in the 1970s and says Stan Jones’s Complete Bar Guide of 1977 carries these drinks. Under the joke sits a sound fruit highball. Sloe gin brings plum and some tartness, Southern Comfort brings peach, and the orange carries both. The Galliano stays on top as vanilla and anise and meets you sip by sip. Squeezed orange is what makes it work, because three of the five bottles are sweet.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Orange slice and Maraschino cherry in period
Ingredients
25ml
Any clean vodka at 40% ABV. It brings alcohol and stays out of the way, which suits a glass already carrying four other tastes.
15ml
Sloe berries steeped in gin with sugar, at 25% ABV or more, the minimum in Regulation 110/2008 on legislation.gov.uk. It brings plum, a little tartness and the colour. It is the Slow in the name.
15ml
The peach and spice liqueur, 35% ABV on LWC’s UK listing. It is the Comfortable in the name and the main source of peach.
90ml
Squeezed the same day. At 90ml it makes up most of the glass, and it is the one sour thing against three sweet bottles.
15ml
Galliano L’Autentico, 42.3% alc./vol. on its own page, which puts anise and peppermint to the fore with a lingering vanilla. Floated last and left on top, as in a Harvey Wallbanger.
Instructions
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice.
Add the vodka, sloe gin and Southern Comfort.
Top with the fresh orange juice and stir once.
Pour the Galliano slowly over the back of a bar spoon so it floats on the surface.
Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry, and serve unstirred.
Expert Tip
Build it in the order of the name. The vodka, sloe gin and Southern Comfort go over the ice first, the orange follows, and a single stir brings them together. The Galliano goes in last and is not stirred. Float the Galliano slowly over the back of a bar spoon held just over the surface. It is sweet and heavy with vanilla and anise. Left on top, it arrives a little at a time. Stirred through, it covers the plum and peach, and the glass tastes mostly of Galliano. Squeeze the orange the same day. Carton juice adds sugar to a glass that already holds three sweet bottles, while fresh juice supplies the sourness that keeps them in line.
Behind the Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The Screwdriver is the root: vodka and orange juice. On Difford’s Guide’s account the Harvey Wallbanger supplied the Galliano float, the Slow Screw brought in sloe gin, and Southern Comfort made it a Slow Comfortable Screw. The long name is what you get when a single order carries all of them.
Difford’s Guide places it in the 1970s, a decade of innuendo-named disco drinks, and says Stan Jones’s 1977 Complete Bar Guide carries them; its Slow Screw family page says the Slow Screw itself emerged in the 1980s. Difford’s Guide gives the Slow Screw as a Screwdriver with sloe gin in place of vodka and the Slow Comfortable Screw as that with Southern Comfort added, and says Galliano adds the wall, as in Harvey Wallbanger.
One Bottle Per Word
Slow is sloe gin, the hedgerow liqueur of sloe berries steeped in gin with sugar. Comfortable is Southern Comfort. Screw is the Screwdriver’s orange juice. Against the Wall is the Galliano float, borrowed from the Harvey Wallbanger.
The order of the words follows the order of the build. The spirits go in first, the orange next, and the Galliano last, on top.
The Family
Each drink in the line adds a bottle to the one before, and the alcohol rises with the length of the name.
The Screwdriver family, from two bottles to five; the units are our calculation at our working figure of 40% for vodka, sloe gin at the 25% minimum in the retained spirit drinks regulation, Southern Comfort at 35% on LWC’s UK listing and Galliano at 42.3% on its own page
Screwdriver
- Base
- 50ml vodka
- Added
- None
- Orange juice
- 120ml
- UK units
- 2.0
Harvey Wallbanger
- Base
- 45ml vodka
- Added
- 15ml Galliano float
- Orange juice
- 120ml
- UK units
- 2.4
Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall
- Base
- 25ml vodka
- Added
- 15ml each of sloe gin, Southern Comfort and Galliano
- Orange juice
- 90ml
- UK units
- 2.5
| Drink | Base | Added | Orange juice | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screwdriver | 50ml vodka | None | 120ml | 2.0 |
| Harvey Wallbanger | 45ml vodka | 15ml Galliano float | 120ml | 2.4 |
| Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall | 25ml vodka | 15ml each of sloe gin, Southern Comfort and Galliano | 90ml | 2.5 |
Ours splits the base between vodka and sloe gin rather than replacing the vodka, so the sloe stays one flavour among several instead of taking over the glass.
The Galliano Float
Galliano L’Autentico is 42.3% alc./vol. on its own page, and the Oxford Companion calls it a sweet herbal liqueur tasting prominently of vanilla and anise. How it goes into the glass matters more than how much of it does.
Poured slowly over the back of a spoon, it settles as a gold layer on the orange, and you drink through it a little at a time. Stirred in, it spreads through the glass, and vanilla and anise cover the plum and peach. Fifteen millilitres, poured last, is enough.
How to Serve It
In a highball packed with ice, the orange slice and cherry on the rim. It suits a warm afternoon and company that does not mind saying the name in full.
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 does the name stand for?
How strong is a Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall?
What is a Slow Screw?
Why float the Galliano instead of stirring it in?
Is it a good drink or just a long name?
Can I make it without Southern Comfort?
Can I make a jug for a group?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “1970s Cocktails & Disco Drinks” (secondary source: the Sloe Gin Fizz combined with the Screwdriver to create the Slow Screw, then the Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against The Wall; all in Stan Jones’s 1977 Jones’ Complete Bar Guide).
- Difford’s Guide, “Slow Screw family of cocktails” (secondary source: the Slow Screw emerged in the 1980s; Galliano adds the wall; the name explained by ingredient).
- Galliano, “Galliano Autentico” (maker’s own page: 42.3% alc./vol.).
- The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails (Robert Simonson), “Galliano” (secondary source: a sweet herbal liqueur from Livorno, tasting prominently of vanilla and anise; invented 1896 by Arturo Vaccari; L’Autentico reintroduced in 2010).
- LWC, “Southern Comfort 70cl” (UK wholesaler listing: Alcohol By Volume 35%).
- legislation.gov.uk, “Regulation (EC) 110/2008, Annex II (retained)” (sloe gin: minimum alcoholic strength 25%).
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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.
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.
Sloe Gin Fizz
A Sloe Gin Fizz is 45ml of sloe gin, 15ml of London Dry gin, 30ml of fresh lemon juice and 10ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard, strained into a chilled small highball with no ice and topped with 60ml of cold soda water, with a lemon wheel. About 1.8 UK units. Add 15ml of egg white for a foam; it is raw egg. Sloe gin is a liqueur, not a gin: sloes steeped in gin with sugar, at 25% ABV or more under Regulation (EC) No 110/2008, and sweet. That is why the drink carries 15ml of dry gin as well, for backbone, and why the syrup should be tasted against the bottle you have. It is built the same way as our Gin Fizz: shaken, served short with no ice and drunk while the soda is lively. PUNCH puts sloe gin’s close link with this drink at the start of the twentieth century.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026