The 13 Best Whiskey Cocktails to Drink During the Summer
Carlo Alberto Orecchia
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Of whiskey’s many natural gifts—and we could go on and on—being a refreshing summer drink isn’t necessarily among them.
Picture yourself at the pool bar of a resort, looking at the cocktail menu. There’s lots of rum, of course (these places are practically temples to rum), and ample tequila, gin and vodka, but whiskey? The resonant woody punch of a good bourbon or rye, the very thing fans of the spirit most enjoy, is much more at home sipped slowly by a fire than it is taken through a straw at the beach. “The dark heavy flavors of oak and vanilla and baking spices are all cigars and deep leather chairs,” we’ve written of whiskey, “and getting it to play nice with lemon juice and sunshine is like getting a bear to wear a hat.”
That, perhaps, is what makes refreshing whiskey drinks so satisfying when they work, and so enduringly popular. They are reliably among the top sellers on any given list, regardless of season, and can be a fantastic showcase the skill of a particular bar or bartender: Sometimes whiskey needs a big flavor like ginger to stand up to it, as seen in the Kentucky Buck or the Penicillin, but other times, like with the Whiskey Smash, all you need is a hit of lemon zest and touch of mint.
No matter how you put it together, whether it’s a simple and artfully composed Japanese Highball or an explosively flavorful Paper Plane, here are 13 whiskey drinks designed to see you through the summer.
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New York Sour
Image Credit: bhofack2/iStock/Getty Images Plus Some unnamed Chicago bartender in the early 1880s had the improbable idea of taking a Whiskey Sour and adding a little red wine to the top, “inventing in a bizarre flash of insight,” we claim, “one of the great warm weather whiskey drinks of our time.” Alone, a Whiskey Sour without an egg white is a serviceable, if incomplete, cocktail. Add a little red wine, though, and it becomes juicy and charming, the fruit in the wine perfectly filling in the gaps in the cocktail. Try one out with the recipe below, or find out why a cocktail invented in Chicago is called the “New York Sour.”
- 2 oz. rye whiskey
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water)
- 0.5 to 1 oz. light red wine
Add rye, lemon juice and simple syrup to the shaker tin with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass, leaving 0.5-inch clearance on the top of the glass. Top with between 0.5 oz. and 1 oz. of light red wine.
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Paper Plane
Image Credit: MaximFesenko/iStock/Getty Images We write that the Paper Plane is “like a whiskey and orange juice that grew up handsome, and for whom everything is going right.” This crowd pleaser, invented by bartender Sam Ross in 2008, gets its charm from two different bittersweet Italian liqueurs, even though the resulting cocktail is neither particularly bitter nor sweet. It is simple to make, and easy to like and “might be,” we claim, “the best cocktail invented in the last 100 years.”
- 0.75 oz. bourbon
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. Amaro Nonino
- 0.75 oz. Aperol
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake for six to 10 seconds. Strain up into a coupe or cocktail glass.
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Whiskey Smash
Image Credit: Carlo Alberto Orecchia “I created this drink,” wrote legendary bartender Dale DeGroff in his 2008 book The Essential Cocktail, “because, frankly, I was a little bored by Mint Juleps, which have a tendency to be too sweet and too uncomplicated.” So he began making a drink at the Rainbow Room he called the Whiskey Smash—the familiar whiskey, sugar and mint, but this time, with lemon wedges added to the mix, muddled with the mint into a pint glass and the whole thing shaken together. Whether or not he was right about Juleps, he’s dead-on that the addition of lemon completely changes the nature of the cocktail, a leap to an entirely distinct cocktail family tree. Now, we’re in Whiskey Sour territory, and the mint and lemon proved to be outstanding solutions to the Sour’s original problem. The addition of mint—plus, importantly, the extra lemon oils extracted from muddling the wedges as opposed to just using juice—transforms the bourbon not just into a summer drink, but an especially fresh and radiant one, with the zestiness of the lemon oil and the mentholated fireworks of the mint providing some deliciously deft misdirection from the tannic sore thumb that tends to weigh down whiskey sours.
- 2 oz. bourbon
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup
- 6-8 mint leaves
- 1 lemon peel, about 2” or so
Add all ingredients, including mint and lemon peel, to a shaker tin. Add ice, shake hard for six to 10 seconds. Strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass, garnish with a mint crown and enjoy.
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Napoleon
Image Credit: Maker’s Mark Born in the California beach enclave of Montecito, the Napoleon comes by its refreshing summer vibes honestly, even if it is made with a seemingly unsummery spirit. Sam Penton at the Manor Bar at the Rosewood Miramar took a high-proof bourbon and the basic structure of a whiskey sour and added some fruitiness and herbaceousness to make this a well-rounded cocktail. The addition of strawberries, vermouth, and Campari are welcome modifiers to the old classic, and their sharpest edges are sanded off with the presence of an egg white to keep it as mellow as you want a summer drink to be.
- 1.5 oz. high-proof bourbon
- 0.5 oz. blanc vermouth (or “blanco” or “bianco”)
- 0.75 oz. Simple Syrup
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 3-4 fresh raspberries
- 1 tsp. Campari
- 1 egg white
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker without ice. Seal the shaker, hold tight, and give it a “dry” shake without ice for three to five seconds. Then add ice, seal again, and shake for eight to 10 seconds. Fine strain into a coupe or cocktail glass.
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Whiskey Sour
Image Credit: Poul Hoang/Unsplash “Is there a more agreeable drink than a well-made Whiskey Sour?” we asked last summer, and we’re still not sure there is. Whiskey, with its broad shoulders and oaky fullness, can be almost completely disarmed by tarting it up with fresh lemon juice and balancing with simple syrup, as bartenders have been doing since roughly forever. We say “almost” because often (though not always) you need a little extra push by way of an egg white.
- 2 oz. bourbon
- 0.75 oz. fresh lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup
- 1 egg white
Add all ingredients to a shaker tin. “Dry” shake ingredients without ice for five seconds to whip the egg. Add ice, seal tins, and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain into coupe or Martini glass—it’ll come out white at first, and the color will emerge over the course of a minute under a paper-smooth head of foam. Express a lemon peel over the top of the foam for aroma and discard and decorate the foam with a few drops or dashes of Angostura Bitters.
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Kentucky Buck
Image Credit: Danny Mirabal Created by bartender Erick Castro at Rickhouse in San Francisco, the Kentucky Buck is a bourbon, ginger and strawberry cocktail that’s great with a ginger beer, but even better with fresh ginger syrup and sparkling water. If it sounds like a Moscow Mule with bourbon and strawberries it’s because that’s exactly what it is, but the mule was passé by that point in San Francisco, so Castro reached deeper into history for the name. A “Buck” is a style of cocktail that dates back to the 1890s—long before the Mule or the Dark ‘n Stormy—and was composed of just a spirit (usually whiskey) and ginger beer, so named because the ginger and alcohol together would give quite a kick (the Moscow Mule is named similarly, for the kick).
- 2 oz. bourbon
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. ginger syrup
- 1 strawberry
- 1-2 dashes Angostura Bitters
- About 2 oz. soda
Muddle the strawberry in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add bourbon, lemon, ginger syrup, and bitters, and shake for six to eight seconds. Strain over fresh ice in a tall glass and top with soda water. Garnish with a half strawberry or a lemon wheel or a mint sprig or all three.
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Gold Rush
Image Credit: Costi Moculescu/500px/Getty Images The Gold Rush—whiskey, lemon juice, and honey syrup—is a good and important drink, but we admit we don’t love it: “The Gold Rush as it’s normally constructed,” we write, “will be forever stuck in third gear until you do something to push it to the next level.” Fortunately, that something can be as easy as spicing it with ginger, perfuming it with florals or smoke, or easier still and our favorite version, adding a grapefruit peel to the shaker tin before shaking on ice. This so called “regal shake” transforms the cocktail, adding complexity and depth.
- 2 oz. bourbon
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. honey syrup
- 1 grapefruit peel, maybe 1” x 2”, taking care to get as little of the white pith as possible
Add all ingredients, including grapefruit peel, to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake hard over ice for 8 to 10 seconds, and strain into rocks glass over fresh ice. Garnish with a lemon wheel or peel.
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Japanese Whisky Highball
Image Credit: MaximFesenko/iStock/Getty Images When is a whisky soda not just a whisky soda? When an entire generation of Japanese bartenders devote themselves to its production. The Whisky Highball has become the de-facto national mixed drink of Japan, and the Japanese have, predictably, mastered the art. “Theoretically uncomplicated,” writes Masahiro Urushido of Highballs in his book The Japanese Art of the Cocktail, “their very simplicity dictates that they be properly made, or they will be disappointing.” Find out why every decision matters (and why 13.5 is the magic number) here, or just follow the instructions below.
Make sure all ingredients and tools are as cold as possible. Add ice to a tall narrow glass pulled from the freezer and add chilled whisky. Gently pour soda water down the side of the glass. Stir minimally, to combine ingredients but to agitate the bubbles as little as possible. Express a lemon peel over the top and discard.
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Cardboard Plane
Image Credit: bhofack43/iStock/Getty Images Plus Picture yourself in the yard grilling meat, the direct sun still uncomfortable in the late afternoon, on one of those days when you wonder if it’s an acceptable hour to start drinking and then decide you don’t care either way. And if you’re anything like me, you are often met with a set of conflicting instincts: It’s too hot for whiskey, but you kinda want whiskey. The temperature forbids sweetness, but you want it refreshing and summery. You don’t want a glass of juice, but you’d love the overall effect to be juicy. It’s like a riddle. What to do? You drink a Cardboard Plane. It’s the child of Sam Ross’s incredible Paper Plane, yet it’s fresher than its predecessor, with more citrus where the other would have herbal complexity, but with a similar textured bitterness and tart finish.
Add all ingredients to a cocktail tin and shake hard on ice. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice and garnish with a grapefruit peel.
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Mint Julep
Image Credit: Jon Lovette/Getty Images Don’t be fooled by the Mint Julep. Its campaign materials may have you convinced it’s just a harmless little minty refresher, but in reality it’s nearly a double-pour of bourbon, tempered only by mint and a touch of sugar. Nonetheless, some 120,000 Mint Juleps are consumed across two sunny days at Churchill Downs during the Kentucky Derby, proving that some cocktails can become refreshing daytime summer sippers just by sheer force of will, and a little crushed ice. Find out the best bourbon to use for your Mint Julep here, or if the race is about to start, quickly fix one up according to the recipe below.
- 2.5 oz. bourbon
- 0.5 oz.-0.75 oz simple syrup (to taste)
- 10-12 mint leaves
In a metal cup, gently muddle the mint into the simple syrup. Add bourbon and fill 2/3 with crushed ice. Stir to chill, until a frost forms on the outside. Then pack the rest of the cup with ice. Take two mint crowns, lightly bruise them with your fingers, and stick them against the inside close to the straw. Enjoy.
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Amaretto Sour
Image Credit: viennetta/iStock/Getty Images Plus We hear you thinking. “The Amaretto Sour? I thought this was about whiskey drinks?” Well, the Amaretto Sour is a whiskey drink, or at least, it should be. It’s been 10 years since a bartender named Jeffrey Morgenthaler wrote on his blog that he had derived “the best Amaretto Sour in the world,” and it was the shake heard round the world. Morgenthaler’s version—Amaretto and lemon, punched up with a pour of high-proof bourbon, and smoothed out with an egg white—utterly transforms the drink. “It’s difficult to overstate how many favors the addition of high-proof bourbon does for the Amaretto Sour,” we write, “it’s not a revision so much as it is born again.”
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake without ice for five to seven seconds to whip the egg white. Add ice and shake hard for eight to 10 seconds. Strain either over
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Brown Derby
Image Credit: Bhofack2/iStock / Getty Images Plus If you only ever drink one cocktail that may or may not have been created inside a building shaped like a bowler hat, let it be a Brown Derby. Of course, the origins of the drink weren’t in Hollywood after all, but let’s not allow that to distract us. The drink we’ve come to know as the Brown Derby is a combination of whiskey, grapefruit, and honey. However, the addition of a little bit of lemon juice gets the balance of this lesser-known drink right and turns it from pedestrian to outstanding.
- 2 oz. bourbon
- 1 oz. grapefruit juice
- 0.25 oz. lemon juice
- 0.5 oz. honey syrup
- 1 half-dollar sized section of grapefruit peel, with as little of the pith as possible
Add all ingredients, including grapefruit peel, to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake good and hard for eight to 10 seconds. Strain off the ice into a rocks glass over fresh ice or up in a coupe (your choice), and garnish with a grapefruit peel.
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Ponton Smash
Image Credit: Tatiana Goskova/500px/Getty Images The Ponton Smash is a whiskey drink cosplaying as a rum drink. It’s whiskey slipping a lei around its neck and pretending it was always designed for the summertime, and what’s more, it’s actually pulling it off. It’s refreshing and tropical, herbaceous and bright, and the reason it works—the reason this is one of the only tiki bourbon drinks you’ll ever see—isn’t because of an unusual build or beachy origin or some exotic tree-sap unearthed from the Bornean jungle. It’s simply due to the transformative magic of a well-chosen absinthe. So for this we us Butterfly Classic Absinthe, it’s character perfectly complementing this drinks other ingredients.
- 1.875 oz. bourbon
- 0.125 oz. (about .75 tsp.) Butterfly Classic Absinthe
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 1 oz. pineapple juice
- 0.5 oz. simple syrup
- 6-8 mint leaves
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake hard on ice for six to eight seconds. No need to muddle the mint, the ice with “smash” it for you. Fine strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice, and garnish with a mint sprig, and if you’re feeling festive, a pineapple slice or leaf.
