Snowball
The Snowball is advocaat, sharp lemonade and a squeeze of lime, built tall over ice. It is a British Christmas fixture and it is a better drink than its reputation allows. Advocaat is a Dutch liqueur of egg yolk, sugar and brandy, thick and pale and closer to custard than to anything else on the back bar. On its own it is far too rich to drink. Lengthened with something sharp it turns into exactly what it should be, which is the entire trick of the Snowball. The lemonade is therefore the whole balance, and it has to be genuinely sharp. Advocaat brings all the sugar the glass can take, so a sweet lemonade produces something closer to a dessert than a drink. The lime is a modern addition and a good one, adding an acidity the original never had. It reached British sideboards after the war and the 1970s made it universal. Nostalgia keeps it there.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Lime Wheel and Maraschino Cherry
Ingredients
50ml
Egg yolk, sugar and brandy, thick and pale and far too rich to drink neat. Shake the bottle before pouring, since it settles. It carries all the sugar the drink can take, which is why the lemonade has to be sharp.
10ml
A modern addition and a good one. Ten millilitres of acidity that the original never had, and the thing that keeps the custard from turning cloying halfway down the glass. Lemon works but is less bright against the vanilla.
120ml
The whole balance, and it must be genuinely sharp. Cloudy and properly tart is the target. A sweet supermarket lemonade adds more of exactly what the advocaat already supplies and the drink collapses into dessert.
Instructions
Shake the advocaat and lime juice with cubed ice for 8 seconds.
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice.
Strain the advocaat and lime into the glass.
Top with sparkling lemonade.
Stir once, gently, and garnish with a lime wheel and a cherry.
Expert Tip
Sharp lemonade or nothing. This is the one decision that makes or breaks the drink. Advocaat is already carrying the sugar, so the lemonade's only job is to argue back, and a sweet supermarket bottle simply adds more of what the glass has too much of. A cloudy, properly tart lemonade is the target. Shake the advocaat with the lime first, before the lemonade goes anywhere near it. Advocaat is thick and does not combine willingly with anything poured on top of it, and a Snowball built entirely by pouring ends up as a layer of custard sitting under fizzy water. Then stir once, gently, and stop. The lemonade is doing lifting work as well as flavouring, and knocking the carbonation out leaves the drink heavy in exactly the way the fizz exists to prevent. One turn of the barspoon, no more.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Advocaat is Dutch and considerably older than the drink. The Snowball is what happened when it met British lemonade, somewhere in the post-war decades, and the pairing became a Christmas institution over the 1970s.
The precise origin is not recorded and probably never was. It is a household drink rather than a bar one, which is exactly the category that leaves no paper trail: it appeared on sideboards, in advertisements and in family habit rather than on any menu.
What is clear is the seasonality. Advocaat sales in Britain are overwhelmingly concentrated between Advent and Twelfth Night, and the bottle bought for Christmas is usually the same bottle finished at Christmas.
What Advocaat Actually Is
Egg yolks, sugar and brandy, blended into something thick, pale yellow and almost exactly the consistency of pouring custard. Dutch in origin, and the name comes from a word for lawyer, on the theory that it was drunk to smooth the throat before speaking.
It is very sweet and very rich, and neat it is close to undrinkable for most people. That is not a fault. It is a liqueur built to be diluted, and every good advocaat drink is a dilution strategy.
It also separates in the bottle. Shake it before pouring or the first drink of the season will be noticeably thinner than the last.
The Sweetness Problem
Every criticism of the Snowball is really a criticism of a badly built one, and the fault is almost always the lemonade.
The drink contains a liqueur that is roughly a third sugar. If the other main ingredient is also sweet, there is nothing in the glass working against it, and what you get is thick, cloying and hard to finish. That version is the one most people remember and it deserves the reputation.
Built with a properly sharp cloudy lemonade and a squeeze of lime, the arithmetic reverses. The acidity cuts the richness, the custard note becomes an interesting texture rather than a burden, and the drink finishes clean enough to want another. Same recipe, different bottle.
Building It Properly
Advocaat's thickness is the practical obstacle. It does not want to combine with anything, and pouring lemonade onto it produces two distinct layers that no amount of stirring will fully reconcile without also destroying the fizz.
The answer is to shake it with the lime first. Eight seconds with ice is enough to loosen it and get the lime through it, and what strains into the glass is a smooth base that the lemonade can lift rather than sit on.
Plenty of ice, then top, then one gentle stir. Serve it immediately, because the fizz is structural here and a Snowball that has stood for five minutes is a noticeably heavier drink.
When to Drink It
December, without embarrassment. It is a genuinely seasonal drink in a way very few cocktails are, and part of what it offers is that it tastes like a particular time of year to a great many people.
It is also unusually good at crossing generations, which is worth something at Christmas. It is low in strength, immediately recognisable to anyone over fifty, and interesting enough made properly that it does not feel like a concession.
Serve it in a tall glass with a lime wheel and a cherry, and do not apologise for it.
The Spirit
AdvocaatThe Netherlands in a bottle: egg yolks, sugar and brandy emulsified into something between a drink and a dessert. Thick enough in its Dutch form to be eaten with a spoon, and the whole reason the Snowball exists.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Snowball cocktail?
Advocaat lengthened with sharp sparkling lemonade and a squeeze of lime, built tall over ice with a lime wheel and a cherry. It is a British Christmas fixture that reached sideboards after the war and became universal in the 1970s.
What is advocaat?
A Dutch liqueur of egg yolk, sugar and brandy, thick and pale and close to pouring custard in consistency. Far too rich to drink neat, which is not a fault: it is built to be diluted, and every good advocaat drink is a dilution strategy.
Why does my Snowball taste sickly?
Almost certainly the lemonade. Advocaat is roughly a third sugar, so if the lemonade is sweet too there is nothing working against it. A properly sharp cloudy lemonade and a squeeze of lime reverses the arithmetic entirely.
Why shake it rather than just build it?
Advocaat is thick and will not combine with anything poured on top of it, so a fully built Snowball ends up as custard sitting under fizzy water. Shaking it with the lime first gives you a smooth base the lemonade can lift.
Master the Techniques
You Might Also Like
Fluffy Duck
The Fluffy Duck is the advocaat bottle’s night out: Dutch custard liqueur lifted with gin and orange, lengthened with soda into a 1970s party classic whose name describes the texture and whose texture keeps the promise. The build balances custard against botanicals. Advocaat and gin at matched measure, with the gin performing on custard exactly the trick juniper performs on cream in an Alexander, cutting the richness so the drink stays a drink. Orange juice brightens it, triple sec doubles the orange from the liqueur side, and the soda lofts the whole thing into the fluff the duck is named for. It drinks like a float that learned manners: sweet, soft and considerably more refreshing than a custard-based cocktail has any business being. Advocaat gets two outings a year in most households, and this is comfortably the better of them and the one that has nothing at all to do with Christmas.
Eggnog
Eggnog is the milk punch that armoured up for winter: whole eggs whisked through milk, cream and sugar over a brandy-and-rum floor, the medieval posset’s descendant that colonial America adopted and December has never released. The carton version is a different and lesser species. The build works yolk and white in concert. Yolks give the custard richness, whisked with the sugar first as a custard would be; whites are optionally whipped and folded for the cloud, or simply shaken through for the simpler reading. The two-spirit floor is the colonial standard, with brandy’s fruit and rum’s molasses sharing the warmth between them, and nutmeg grated over the top as it is over the whole dairy family. Made by the glass it is a revelation to anyone whose only reference is a carton. Aged by the bottle, spending weeks maturing in the fridge before it is opened, it is the holiday’s deepest and least known secret.
White Russian
The White Russian is the Black Russian’s creamier child, appearing in print by 1965 as the era’s dinner-party update of the Brussels original: vodka, coffee liqueur and a float of cream, with dessert and nightcap negotiating in one rocks glass. It spent the health-conscious decades in exile, remembered as a period piece. Then 1998 happened. The Big Lebowski gave the drink to the Dude, who mixes White Russians with whatever is to hand throughout the film, and the cocktail became a cult object: ordered in his honour nightly ever since, half-ironically at first and then simply because it is very good. Built properly it justifies the devotion. The cream is floated rather than stirred, so the drink starts black and finishes white, marbling as it goes. It is the gentlest landing the coffee-vodka family offers, and the right call when an evening wants something that behaves like a dessert without quite being one.
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