Godfather
Scotch whisky and amaretto, built over one large cube — a simple, two-ingredient nightcap.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 2 min
- Strength
- 36% ABV
- Glassware
- Rocks glass
- Base
- whisky
- Serves
- 1
Related drinks
Method
- Fill a rocks glass with one large ice cube or a few regular cubes.
- Add the Scotch and amaretto.
- Stir briefly to combine and chill.
Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Jigger
Household swap: Any small measuring cup marked in 25ml increments
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Blended Scotch
Best substitute: Irish Whiskey
This is the base in this drink.
Flavour impact: A smoother, less smoky result — genuinely different but still balances well with amaretto's sweetness.
What changes
Expect more sweetness. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Sweetness ↑
- The drink will land sweeter, which also makes it read as less sharp and slightly heavier even though nothing else changed.
- Character
- Both are smooth, and you lose honeyed, light smoke and balanced, and you gain light, sweet cereal and gentle. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Cut the syrup or sugar back — start by halving it and taste before adding any back.
Moderate confidenceA reasonable substitute when Scotch specifically isn't available.Shifts the drink
Make it better
- A single large cube melts slower than several small ones, so the drink stays properly cold without diluting too fast.
- Blended Scotch is traditional here — a single malt's more distinctive character can clash with the amaretto rather than complement it.
- Amaretto brands vary a lot in sweetness, so treat 25ml as a starting point rather than a fixed measure. Taste it and pull back if yours runs sweet.
- Use one large ice cube rather than several small ones — it dilutes more slowly and keeps the drink from turning watery.
Rescue this drink
- Tastes too sweet
- Increase the Scotch-to-amaretto ratio slightly — try 55ml/20ml instead of 50ml/25ml.
- Amaretto flavour disappears
- Check your Scotch isn't overly peaty/smoky for this build — a milder blended Scotch lets the amaretto show through better.
- Tastes watery
- Use fewer, larger ice cubes and drink it within a few minutes of stirring — this is a small, spirit-forward drink with little margin for over-dilution.
- It is not as good by the time everyone has onegeneral guidance
- This one does hold, within limits. Anything with fresh citrus in it starts dulling within a couple of hours, and anything carbonated is on a much shorter clock than that. Batch the stable part — spirits, sweeteners, bitters — ahead, add the citrus on the day, and the fizz at the moment of pouring. Adding the dilution to the batch matters too, or the first glass is right and the rest are progressively stronger.
- Too weak or waterygeneral guidance
- Add a splash more of the base spirit rather than extra mixer. For stirred or built drinks, over-dilution from ice is the usual cause — try a shorter stir or fewer, larger ice cubes.
- Too stronggeneral guidance
- Stir or shake for a little longer to add dilution, or add a splash of chilled water. This is a spirit-forward drink by design, so some strength is expected.
- Served too warmgeneral guidance
- Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
Make ahead & storage
Batches well
Everything in this can be mixed days ahead and kept cold. It is one of the drinks to build a party menu around.
Both ingredients can be pre-mixed and stored at room temperature (no dilution to worry about until it's poured over ice) — combine in the stated ratio and keep in a sealed bottle.
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
sweet, soft, light — a spirit and modifier drink served over ice.
Sweet
Dry → Sweet
Openly sweet, and balanced by something else rather than hidden.
What drives it: Amaretto — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Faintly bitter
Gentle → Bitter
A bitter edge you would only notice if you looked for it.
What drives it: Blended Scotch whisky — provides the bitterness.
Light
Light → Rich
Light-bodied. It refreshes rather than satisfies, which is usually the intention.
What drives it: Blended Scotch whisky — adds most of the weight.
Very bold
Delicate → Bold
Very bold — concentrated, and served small for that reason.
What drives it: Blended Scotch whisky — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- OakLeads
From Blended Scotch whisky
- SmokeLeads
From Blended Scotch whisky
- Nutty
From Amaretto
Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sweet
- Likely cause
- Amaretto is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
- What to change
- Cut amaretto by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
- What that does
- It will taste drier and slightly thinner — sugar carries body as well as sweetness, so you lose a little weight along with it.
It's too strong
- Likely cause
- Blended Scotch whisky dominates by design here — this is a drink built to be sipped, and it is under-diluted more often than it is over-poured.
- What to change
- Building in the glass for longer, or add a measured 5–10ml of water. Both are the same correction; one is just more honest about it.
- What that does
- Alcohol heat drops and the aromatics open up — a slightly diluted spirit-forward drink usually smells better, not worse.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- This drink's aroma comes from oak and smoke, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
- What to change
- Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
- What that does
- More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 2 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a spirit and modifier drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 3/5
- Sourness
- 0/5
- Bitterness
- 1/5
- Strength
- 5/5
- Fruitiness
- 0/5
- Freshness
- 0/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 3/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate onlyBased on standard 50ml/25ml pours at typical Scotch and amaretto proof.- Calories
- 165 kcal
- Sugar
- 8 g
- Carbohydrates
- 8 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.7
- US standard drinks
- 1.52
- ABV
- 36%
- Serving size
- 75 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~149 kcal from alcohol, ~16 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 124–206 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes blended Scotch at 40% ABV and amaretto at 28% ABV.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
French Connection
Cognac in place of Scotch, with the same amaretto proportion — a related two-ingredient classic.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A built build: a spirit and modifier whisky-based drink, served over ice — clean in the mouth.
Spirit and modifier
Spirit combined with an aromatised or flavoured modifier and little else — concentrated, and served small for exactly that reason.
Base
Blended Scotch whisky
Spirit in the largest measure — read as the base.
Sweet element
Amaretto
Sweet liqueur (5/5) and nothing else in the drink sweetens — so this is the sweet element, the way triple sec is in a Margarita.
2 components' roles areworked out from the ingredient's category and recorded taste attributes rather than set by hand — the reasoning is shown above so you can disagree with it.
Technique
built
Components are poured into the serving glass over ice and stirred once, or not at all. Dilution happens while you drink rather than before.
The drink changes as you go: strongest at the first sip, longest and most diluted at the last. That drift is a feature of a long drink and a fault in a short one.
What it ruins: Nothing, but it cannot properly combine anything viscous — a syrup poured last will sit at the bottom.
Also involves batching.
Everything about building in the glass →How the technique works →Dilution
In the glass, as you drink
Water from ice typically makes up around 15% of the finished drink for a built build (commonly 10–20%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Over ice
Rocks glass · 75ml
Served on ice, so it keeps chilling in the glass. A larger, colder, slower drink than the same spirits served straight up.
Texture and aroma
Nothing here thickens or aerates the drink — it is as light in the mouth as the liquid itself.
No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Drinking this with food: a digestif, properly
On its recorded taste scores this drink meets the test for a digestif, properly — the page explains the principle behind it rather than simply asserting the pairing.
Making good drinks at home
A good drink to learn on. The beginner path covers the four things that actually make a home cocktail disappointing.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Godfather
A simple, well-established two-ingredient build with no single documented inventor; the name pairing with "Godmother" (vodka in place of Scotch) is long-standing.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Rusty Nail
Rusty Nail
You may like this because it shares a strong taste profile with the Godfather.
- Oaxaca Old Fashioned
Oaxaca Old Fashioned
You may like this because it shares a strong-forward profile with the Godfather, but uses tequila instead of whisky.
Godmother
You may like this because it shares a strong-forward profile with the Godfather, but uses vodka instead of whisky.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
Recipe confidence
A fixed, widely-consistent two-ingredient ratio across bar references.