Occasion
Everyday cocktails
Most nights don't call for a showpiece drink — just something decent made with what's already in the cupboard. Everyday cocktails favour a short ingredient list, a quick prep method and a base spirit you're likely to already own, over anything that demands a trip to a specialist shop. They're the drinks worth actually learning by heart, because you'll make them often enough for that to matter.
What everyday drinks have in common
Measured across the 101 recipes on this page, compared with the rest of the site.
- Strength
- Noticeably lighter than average — a median of 9% in the glass against 14% across the rest of the site.
- Effort
- 53% are built straight in the glass rather than shaken or stirred, against 32% elsewhere — you can make these without a shaker.
- Difficulty
- 78% are rated easy, against 44% across the rest of the catalogue.
- Alcohol-free and low-alcohol
- 34% of this list is alcohol-free or low in alcohol, so there is something to serve everyone without making a separate drink.
101 everyday 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.
Ginger Lime Fizz
Ginger beer, lime and soda over ice with mint — a spicy, fizzy CocktailHQ original.
Espresso Tonic
Chilled tonic water over ice with a fresh double espresso poured on top — bittersweet, fizzy and cold.
Bacardí Cocktail
White rum, lime and grenadine, shaken cold — a Daiquiri with a pink, pomegranate-sweetened twist.
Tommy's Margarita
Tequila, lime and agave syrup — no triple sec — a cleaner, more agave-forward take on the Margarita.
Coffee Old Fashioned
A classic Old Fashioned given a cold-brew twist — bourbon, coffee and bitters, stirred slow.
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.
Sparkling Cranberry Mocktail
Tart cranberry juice lengthened with soda and lime — a bright, festive-looking three-ingredient mocktail.
Cucumber Mint Cooler
Muddled cucumber and mint lengthened with lime and soda — a cool, green, alcohol-free highball.
Virgin Daiquiri
Lime and sugar blended with crushed ice to a frozen slush, finished with a splash of soda — the Daiquiri's citrus snap, without the rum.
Oaxaca Old Fashioned
Tequila and mezcal with agave and bitters, stirred over ice — an Old Fashioned built on agave rather than grain.
Queen's Park Swizzle
Rum, lime, mint and sugar swizzled through crushed ice, with a float of Angostura on top.
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 Hot Toddy
Honey, lemon and hot water with whole spice — the toddy's comforting half, without the whisky.
Virgin Sea Breeze
Cranberry and grapefruit over ice — the Sea Breeze's dry, tart half, which was always the interesting part.
Lime Rickey
Lime, a little sugar and soda water — three ingredients, and the driest long drink on the site.