Vodka Cocktails
39 recipes, page 1 of 2
This Field Manual holds 39 recipes built on vodka. Vodka is distilled to strip character rather than to build it, which makes it the one spirit here defined by absence.
That absence is the reason to reach for it. In an espresso martini or a bloody mary the vodka carries strength and texture and lets coffee, or tomato and spice, do the work where gin would argue with both. In a moscow mule it lets ginger lead. The trade is that a vodka drink has nowhere to hide: with no botanicals to cover a thin mixer or warm ice, the build and the temperature are the whole drink.
Difficulty Level
Appletini
The Appletini has a precise birthplace: Lola’s in West Hollywood, 1996, where it debuted as the Adam’s Apple Martini and turned luminous green within a year of conquering Los
Black Russian
The Black Russian was mixed in 1949 at the Hotel Metropole in Brussels by barman Gustave Tops, for Perle Mesta, the American ambassador to Luxembourg and Washington's most famous
Black Widow
The Black Widow is a dark house serve built for Halloween: three blackberries muddled in the shaker, then vodka, blackberry liqueur, fresh lemon and a short measure of simple
Bloody Mary
The Bloody Mary is the only drink in the official canon whose recipe ends with an instruction rather than a measure. Vodka, tomato juice and lemon are fixed; the Worcestershire,
Cape Codder
The Cape Codder is vodka, cranberry juice and a squeeze of lime, and the lime is not optional. Without it you have a glass of juice with vodka in it; with it the drink finishes
Chocolate Martini
The Chocolate Martini is the 1990s in a conical glass: vodka, chocolate liqueur and a measure of single cream shaken cold and finished with dark shavings, dessert and digestif
Cosmopolitan
The Cosmopolitan is the most famous cocktail of the 1990s and better than its fame: a pink drink with a sour’s bones, whose modern spec was settled by Toby Cecchini at Manhattan’s
Dawa
The Dawa is Nairobi's answer to the caipirinha, and its name is Swahili for medicine. Vodka goes over lime quarters muddled with honey, the whole thing is filled with crushed ice,
Espresso Martini
Dick Bradsell created the Espresso Martini in 1983 at the Soho Brasserie in London, reportedly at the request of a young model who asked for something that would "wake me up and
French Martini
The French Martini is a New York drink with a French accent: it emerged in the late 1980s from Keith McNally’s downtown restaurants, Balthazar’s bar making it famous, and it led
Greyhound
The Greyhound is older than its vodka. Harry Craddock printed the grapefruit-and-gin original in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, and the drink took both its name and its second
Gypsy Queen
The Gypsy Queen is vodka and Bénédictine at two to one with a dash of Angostura, stirred and served up. It is a very simple drink and an unusual one, because it uses vodka the way
Harvey Wallbanger
The Harvey Wallbanger is a Screwdriver that took a swerve: vodka and orange juice with a float of Galliano, the tall golden Italian liqueur, and the most successful
John Daly
The John Daly is an Arnold Palmer with vodka in it: iced tea, lemonade and a measure of spirit, over ice in a tall glass. The Palmer is tea and lemonade at three to one, named
Kamikaze
The Kamikaze is the 1970s in a shaker: vodka, triple sec and lime, born by most accounts in the American bars of the disco era and named with the decade’s customary subtlety. It
Lemon Drop Martini
The Lemon Drop is a vodka sour with a sugared rim, and the rim is structural rather than decorative. The liquid is balanced sharper than a standard sour precisely because every
Moscow Mule
The Moscow Mule is the drink that taught America to drink vodka, and it was born of two business problems having lunch. In 1941 John Martin could not sell the Smirnoff brand he
Pornstar Martini
The Pornstar Martini was created by Douglas Ankrah at the Townhouse bar in Knightsbridge, London, in 2002, and became one of the most successful cocktail creations of the
Raspberry & Orange Blossom Spritz
A recent invention rather than a drink with a past, and an unusually well-judged one because the two halves of its name pull in opposite directions. Raspberry is sharp, bright and
Russian Spring Punch
The Russian Spring Punch is Dick Bradsell's, built in London in the late 1980s, and it is a lemon sour with crème de cassis in it and champagne on top. Bradsell is reported to
Salty Dog
The Salty Dog is a Greyhound that learned the Paloma’s lesson early: the same spirit and grapefruit, rimmed with salt, and the rim changes everything. It surfaces in American bar
Screaming Orgasm
The Screaming Orgasm is vodka, amaretto, coffee liqueur and Irish cream, shaken and served over ice. It is a dessert, it is from the 1980s, and the name was the marketing. The
Screwdriver
The Screwdriver is the simplest cocktail with a proper origin story: American engineers and oil workers in the mid-century, spiking cans of orange juice with vodka and stirring
Seabreeze
The Seabreeze is vodka, cranberry juice and grapefruit juice over ice, and the two juices are the entire drink. Cranberry is sweet-tart and grapefruit is bitter, and each corrects