No shaking required
Cocktails you can make without a shaker
Built directly in the glass, stirred in a jug, muddled or layered — none of these need a shaker tin at all.
Shaking gets a lot of the spotlight, but it's only the right technique for drinks that need to be aerated or emulsified — citrus sours, egg-white drinks, anything with cream. A huge number of classic cocktails are actually built straight in the serving glass over ice, or stirred gently in a mixing glass or jug, which means you don't need a shaker, or the arm workout that comes with one, to make them properly.
This list covers every prep method that isn't shaking: built (poured straight into the glass), stirred (mixed gently with ice to chill without aerating), muddled (crushed to release flavour before building) and layered (poured carefully to keep ingredients separate). If a jigger and a spoon are all you've got, start here.
119 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.
French Connection
Cognac and amaretto, built over ice — a simple, warming two-ingredient sipper.
Death in the Afternoon
Absinthe topped with ice-cold Champagne — a stark two-ingredient drink credited to Ernest Hemingway.
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.
Corpse Reviver No. 1
Cognac, apple brandy and sweet vermouth, stirred cold — the older, spirit-forward half of the Corpse Reviver family.
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 Bellini
Peach purée topped with alcohol-free sparkling wine — two ingredients, and the same drink the original always was.
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.