The guiding philosophy of all cocktails is that a mixed drink can be greater than the sum of its parts. The same is doubly true for a mashup drink: The canon of playful hybrids can be more than just a gimmick when done right.
Many of these cocktails bridge related recipes—those connected by the same base spirit or flavor palette—like the Sidecar 75, in which a Sidecar gets an added dose of sweetness by way of a French 75–inspired Champagne syrup. Others, meanwhile, make use of innovative techniques, like Dave Arnold’s juice shake; thanks to frozen cubes of cranberry juice, his Cape Cod Margarita is extra-cold and full of flavor.
But the majority of mashup recipes marry drinks from opposite ends of the spectrum. Washington, D.C.’s now-shuttered Columbia Room, which was a proponent of the mashup drink, featured crosses like the Daiquirac (Daiquiri/Sazerac), the Last Cup (Last Word/Pimm’s Cup) and the Cosmogroni (Cosmopolitan/Negroni), to name a few.
With an almost infinite number of permutations, the canon of cocktail mashups grows by the day. Below, we’ve rounded up the standouts, Dirty Martini Highball to White Negroni Piña Colada, that are worth mixing at home.
