Occasion
Brunch cocktails
Brunch cocktails answer to a stricter set of rules than evening drinks: lower in alcohol, brighter in flavour, and sociable enough to sip slowly over a couple of hours without anyone regretting it by early afternoon. Sparkling wine and citrus juice do most of the work, which is why so many of the genre's classics — the ones built for a table, not a bar — barely need a shaker at all.
What brunch drinks have in common
Measured across the 46 recipes on this page, compared with the rest of the site.
- Strength
- Noticeably lighter than average — a median of 6% in the glass against 14% across the rest of the site.
- Effort
- 63% are built straight in the glass rather than shaken or stirred, against 37% elsewhere — you can make these without a shaker.
- Difficulty
- 89% are rated easy, against 54% across the rest of the catalogue.
- Alcohol-free and low-alcohol
- 59% of this list is alcohol-free or low in alcohol, so there is something to serve everyone without making a separate drink.
If there is food involved
Fat coats the palate and dulls it. Acidity and carbonation both strip it back, which is why a sharp, cold, lively drink makes the second mouthful of something fried taste as good as the first.
Rich, fried and fatty food, and the drinks that meet it →46 brunch cocktails
Shirley Temple
Ginger ale and grenadine with a maraschino cherry — a bright, fizzy classic mocktail.
Garden Highball
Alcohol-free botanical spirit, tonic, cucumber and mint — a crisp, herbal highball for the garden.
Espresso Tonic
Chilled tonic water over ice with a fresh double espresso poured on top — bittersweet, fizzy and cold.
Vietnamese Coffee Cocktail
Dark rum stirred into strong iced coffee and sweetened condensed milk — a spirited take on Vietnamese cà phê sữa đá.
Kombucha Mule
Ginger kombucha and lime over ice — a tangy, faintly funky alcohol-free take on the Moscow Mule format.
Cucumber Mint Cooler
Muddled cucumber and mint lengthened with lime and soda — a cool, green, alcohol-free highball.
Roy Rogers
Cola and grenadine with a maraschino cherry — the cola-based sibling to a Shirley Temple.
Virgin Sunrise
Orange juice and grenadine, layered so the colour bleeds from red to gold — the Tequila Sunrise without the tequila.
Alcohol-Free Bellini
Peach purée topped with alcohol-free sparkling wine — two ingredients, and the same drink the original always was.
Virgin Sea Breeze
Cranberry and grapefruit over ice — the Sea Breeze's dry, tart half, which was always the interesting part.
