Three ingredients — and that’s it: 10 cocktails that are impossible to mess up
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Over the years behind the bar, I’ve come up with a simple rule: the fewer ingredients in a cocktail, the more honest it is with you. When there are twelve components in a glass, there’s always a way to hide bad rum behind syrup and juice. When there are three — there’s nowhere to hide. But it’s also nearly impossible to ruin such a drink: the proportions stick in your mind after the first try, the technique fits into three moves, and the result looks like you’ve been preparing for a week.
These are the kinds of recipes I recommend starting with for anyone who has just bought a shaker and doesn’t know what to do with it. Not with a Long Island made from five types of alcohol, but with a Negroni, where everything mixes right in the glass, or with a Gin and Tonic, which is hard to even call a recipe — and yet people manage to ruin it with warm tonic and a pathetic couple of ice cubes.
Below are ten tried-and-true cocktails, each with no more than three main ingredients. All recipes are from the catalog 24cocktails.com, with exact proportions and step-by-step techniques. Save this — this list will last you a year of home evenings.
1. Negroni
Perfect symmetry: three ingredients exactly 30 ml each, and no shaker. Negroni is a bitter, grown-up aperitif that you drink before dinner, not instead of it. Legend has it that the cocktail was born in Florence when Count Camillo Negroni asked a bartender to make his Americano stronger and replace the soda with gin. The Italian bitterness — gin, Campari, and vermouth — hasn’t changed by a milliliter since then.
Ingredients
- Gin — 30 ml
- Campari — 30 ml
- Sweet vermouth — 30 ml
How to make
- Fill an old fashioned glass with ice cubes.
- Pour in the gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth.
- Stir with a bar spoon.
- Garnish with a slice of orange.
Tip: There should be plenty of ice — a full glass, not just two cubes. Large ice melts slowly and won't turn your drink into a slush while you're sipping it.
2. Old Fashioned
One of the oldest cocktails around — essentially, this is the original formula for the word 'cocktail': strong spirit, sugar, bitters, and water in the form of melting ice. Nothing extra, no fuss. It's a slow drink for an evening when there's no rush: you stir it for half a minute and sip it for another twenty.
Ingredients
- Bourbon — 60 ml
- Simple syrup — 10 ml
- Angostura bitters — 2-3 dashes
How to make
- In an old fashioned glass, place a large ice cube.
- Add the simple syrup and bitters.
- Pour in the bourbon.
- Gently stir with a bar spoon for 20-30 seconds.
- Express the oil from the orange peel over the glass, garnish with the peel and a cocktail cherry.
Tip: the main mistake is skimping on the stirring time. Those 20-30 seconds with ice give the drink both chilling and proper dilution; without them, an Old Fashioned just burns.
3. Margarita (Margarita)
A Mexican classic with tequila and lime, which has dozens of legends about its origin and one ironclad ratio: two parts tequila, one part orange liqueur, one part lime juice. The acidity, sweetness, and salt on the rim work as a single mechanism — take away one element, and the magic falls apart. This is a cocktail for a crowd: it scales up for six just as easily as for one.
Ingredients
- Tequila — 50 ml
- Triple Sec — 25 ml
- Lime juice — 25 ml
How to make it
- Run a lime wedge around the rim of the glass and dip the edge in salt.
- In a shaker with ice, add tequila, triple sec, and lime juice.
- Shake vigorously for 10-15 seconds.
- Strain into the glass and garnish with a lime wedge.
Tip: juice — only freshly squeezed. Bottled lime juice kills a Margarita faster than cheap tequila: it's the live acidity that keeps the whole balance.
4. Daiquiri
Rum, lime, sugar — the Cuban trio that Hemingway adored and that bartenders around the world consider a test of skill: there’s nowhere to hide a mistake in a Daiquiri. The right Daiquiri isn’t a sweet slush from a machine, but an icy, tart sip of elegance. Perfect in the summer, but honestly works year-round.
Ingredients
- White rum — 1 1/2 oz
- Lime: 2 wedges (Juice of 1/2 — juice of half a lime)
- Powdered sugar: 1 tsp
How to make
- Pour all the ingredients into a shaker with ice cubes.
- Shake well.
- Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Tip: Put the glass in the freezer about ten minutes before making. Daiquiri is served without ice, and a warm glass takes away its chill — the only thing it has going for it.
5. Dry Martini
The most famous silhouette in cocktail history: a cone-shaped glass, an olive, clarity. The Dry Martini is elegant arithmetic of gin and dry vermouth, a drink whose proportions have been debated for over a century. Start with the classic ratio of about five to one, and then adjust the vermouth to your taste — everyone eventually finds their own formula.
Ingredients
- Gin — 1 2/3 oz (50 ml)
- Dry vermouth — 1/3 oz (10 ml)
- Olive: 1 piece.
How to make
- Pour the gin and dry vermouth into a mixing glass with ice cubes.
- Stir well.
- Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
- Express the oil from a lemon peel over the drink or garnish with an olive.
Advice: Stir, don’t shake — no matter what Bond orders. Stirring with a spoon gives a silky, clear texture; a shaker will muddle the drink and drown it in ice.
6. Gin & Tonic
A simple classic — gin with tonic. Two ingredients, not three, but leaving it out of this list would be a crime. The drink was born out of practical considerations: the British in the colonies mixed bitter quinine tonic with gin, and the medicine unexpectedly became a pleasure. Today, it’s the most honest test of a home bar: everything is audible here — the quality of the gin, the freshness of the tonic, and the amount of ice.
Ingredients
- Gin — 50 ml
- Tonic — 150 ml
How to prepare
- Fill the highball glass with ice cubes to the top.
- Pour in the gin.
- Carefully pour the tonic down the side of the glass.
- Gently stir with a bar spoon and garnish with a lime wedge.
Tip: the tonic should be from a freshly opened cold bottle, ice should be filled to the top. A half-empty glass with ice melts faster and dilutes the drink; a flat tonic won't save anything.
7. White Russian
A classic made with vodka and coffee liqueur, topped with cream — a dessert and a digestif in one glass. The cocktail owes its second life to the film 'The Big Lebowski': The Dude drank them throughout the movie, and bars still feel that in their orders. Perfect for lovers of creamy drinks — and for evenings when you want to drink dessert rather than eat it.
Ingredients
- Vodka — 2 oz (60 ml)
- Kahlúa — 1 oz (30 ml)
- Light cream: 60 ml
How to make
- Pour vodka into an old-fashioned glass.
- Add coffee liqueur.
- Fill the glass with light cream.
- Serve immediately.
Tip: use drinking cream, not heavy cooking cream — the thick stuff will clump up. And serve right away, as in the recipe: a sitting White Russian separates unattractively.
8. Pina Colada
Tropical rum with pineapple and coconut — the national cocktail of Puerto Rico and the main drink of all vacations at once. There are no subtle balances or bar alchemy here: just a blender, ice, and three ingredients that you can't mix up wrong. The only cocktail on the list for which the technique of 'blend everything together' is not a shortcut, but a canon.
Ingredients
- White rum — 50 ml
- Coconut cream — 40 ml
- Pineapple juice — 90 ml
How to make it
- Put all the ingredients in a blender with crushed ice.
- Blend until you have a smooth, creamy texture.
- Pour into a hurricane glass.
- Garnish with a slice of pineapple and a cocktail umbrella.
Tip: you really need crushed ice — the blender doesn’t grind the cubes evenly, and instead of a creamy texture, you end up with chunks and ice bits. Wrap the cubes in a towel and roll over them with a rolling pin.
9. Tequila Sunrise
Tequila, orange juice, and grenadine, which paints that very sunrise in the glass — a gradient from yellow to crimson, the reason people order this cocktail. It's a mood drink from the seventies, immortalized by the Eagles' song of the same name. It's easier to make than it looks: the whole trick is in one neat pour of the grenadine.
Ingredients
- Tequila — 2 measures
- Orange juice
- Grenadine
How to make
- Fill the highball with ice.
- Pour in the tequila and add the orange juice.
- Carefully pour in the grenadine so it sinks to the bottom.
- Gently stir to create the sunrise effect, garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry.
Tip: Pour the grenadine slowly over the back of a bar spoon or down the side of the glass — it's heavier than the juice and will sink to the bottom on its own. Stir it vigorously and you'll just get an orange glass without the 'sunrise'.
10. Mimosa (Mimosa)
Champagne plus orange juice — the king of brunches and New Year's mornings. Two ingredients, zero technique, and it looks like a celebration: that's why people love the Mimosa. The name comes from the mimosa flower, which matches the drink's sunny color.
Ingredients
- Champagne: 6 oz (about 180 ml; Chilled)
- Orange juice — 2 oz (60 ml)
How to make
- Make sure the champagne and orange juice are well chilled.
- Pour the orange juice into the champagne flute.
- Carefully add the chilled champagne.
- Serve it cold.
Tip: first juice, then wine — just like in the recipe, and no other way. If you pour it the other way around, the juice will drown the bubbles, and instead of a sparkling Mimosa, you'll end up with a flat fizz. No ice in the glass: the cold should come from the bottle.
Ten recipes, a maximum of three ingredients in each — and not a single reason to say 'I can't do it.' Start with what you already have on the shelf, practice until it’s second nature, and then move on: there are way more than ten short recipes in the cocktail world.
More simple recipes — in the full catalog →
Mark the bottles on your shelf — the site will show you what you can mix right now →