13 Sour Cocktails to Shake Up at Home
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“Sour” is a strange word to use when describing food and drink, but in the world of cocktails, it’s a surprisingly delicious sub-category of mixed drinks. Sour cocktails hit that perfect sweet-tart balance and they’re some of the most fun drinks you can shake up at home.
Here are 13 must-try sour cocktail recipes guaranteed to raise your home-bar game in a big way:
1. Whiskey Sour
Learning how to pull off a drink with egg white should be a rite of passage for every newbie cocktail maker. This sweet, slightly tart drink is an absolute classic with its retro foam topping, and a real game-changer in terms of mouthfeel and texture.
Egg white? Yes! Your Guide to Making Egg White Cocktails the Easy Way
2. Pisco Sour
Hailing from pretty Peru, this is an earthy and tasty drink featuring pisco featuring pisco (a white Peruvian brandy made from Muscadel grapes), lime, egg white, and sugar as ingredients. It also happens to be the national cocktail of Peru and Chile.
3. Amaretto Sour
This is a nutty spin-off of the classic Whiskey Sour. Almond-flavoured liqueur comes to the party with rich notes of vanilla and a subtly bitter finish. We love serving this as an after-dinner drink with a cheese platter and plenty of dark, red fruit like plums and grapes.
4. Classic Margarita
The amazingly zingy Lime Margarita is the OG drink that initially started the full-blown Margarita craze. Combining tequila, Grand Marnier (opens in new window), lime juice, and agave syrup, it pairs well with all sorts of tasty appetizers and main meals. As such, it’s a great trick to have up your hosting sleeve.
Want to go no-ABV? Shake up our Margarita Mocktail!
5. Tequila Sour
Tequila summer cocktails don’t come any more iconic than this. The Tequila Sour is a mashup between a classy 1920s sour cocktail and a tasty modern Margarita that hits the sweet spot of retro and trendy with plenty of lemon-lime brightness.
Learn more: A Beginner’s Guide to the Different Types of Tequila
6. Sour Cherry French 75
This variation on the traditional French 75 cocktail recipe calls for gin (opens in new window), lemon juice, sour cherry syrup and Prosecco. The cherry syrup adds a lovely blush-coloured seasonal twist that makes the drink instantly Instagrammable!
7. Gold Rush
First invented in New York Bar called Milk and Honey before Prohibition rolled around, the Gold Rush cocktail is similar to the Bee’s Knees but replaces gin with bourbon. Straightforward and sophisticated, it’s the perfect pre-dinner serve for your next summer party.
8. Clover Club
Tangy, frothy, bright pink, and pretty as a picture, the Clover Club cocktail is an excellent option for gin lovers who want to expand their drinks repertoire, and a fantastic all-rounder drink that suits just about any occasion. We love it as a signature cocktail at weddings simply because it’s so lovely to look at.
9. Gin Gimlet
Apparently first invented to help sailors stave off scurvy, this delightfully sweet and sour cocktail combines gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and an optional splash of club soda. The great thing about the easy list of Gimlet ingredients is that you can really adapt this drink to suit your taste by using vodka or tequila as your base spirit and experimenting with muddle ingredients such as basil and cucumber.
10. Classic Mojito
To whip up an authentic Mojito, you combine a few indigenous Cuban ingredients to create a sweet, sparkly sip. It’s so easy – all you need is white rum, lime, mint, sugar, and a little club soda for a fizzy finish.
Make it a mocktail: Shake up a Virgin Strawberry Mojito!
11. New York Sour
An IBA official cocktail, the New York Sour cocktail hails from the mid-19th century. Adding red wine to the base of a classic Whiskey Sour imparts a deep red color and striking aromatic qualities that make for a wonderfully complex flavor profile without being too finicky to shake up on the fly.
Expert recommendations: 15 Drinks on the IBA’s List of Official Cocktails You’ve Got to Try
12. Gin Sour
Light, with a lot of character, this cocktail comes together with gin (opens in new window), fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, egg white, and a few dashes of bitters. The egg white makes a luscious foam, but you can also skip it if you aren’t keen on the idea – the drink is also great without it.
13. Lemon Drop Martini
The Lemon Drop Martini is a festive sour serve if ever there was one. With a perky attitude and a glittery sugar rim, this perfectly balanced tart drink had its origins in the heydays of the 1970s and was named after a zesty candy that was equally popular at the time.
More vodka vibes? What to Mix with Vodka
Other tasty cocktail avenues to explore
If the sour cocktail lineup has you excited to get your shaker out, here are a few other tasty mixed drink avenues to explore when you’re feeling adventurous:
The Best Gin Cocktails Ever Invented
9 Bourbon-Based Summer Cocktails to Beat the Heat
Pop the Cork: Our Best Cocktails with Champagne
15 Totally Tropical Pineapple Juice Cocktails
10 Simple Cognac Cocktails to Impress Your Friends
We recommend that you start from the top and make them all one at a time so you can find your ultimate cocktail recipe favorite. So, get shaking and sipping, and remember to tag The Mixer (opens in new window) in your pics. Looking for more inspo? Sign up for our newsletter!
