Lesson 9: Two Liquor Drinks

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Free Online Bartending School.

In the previous lesson, we went over what a highball drink is. In this lesson, we will cover two liquor drinks.

Two liquor drinks are simply cocktails made with a liqueur and a liquor (or a mix).

Since we haven't gone over what a liqueur is, you may not know what a difference between a liquor and a liqueur is. I will go ahead and post a full detailed liqueur lesson in my next post. For now, just remember that liqueur is sweet alcohol, that has a lower alcohol percentage than a liquor.

The cocktails in today's lesson will all go into a rocks glass. Rocks glass is a short, stumpy glass. As with a highball, there are many variations of a rocks glass.

Here is a classic rocks glass.

Some have designs on it.

Others are squared shaped.

So as with highballs, remember that the drinks that we cover today must all go into a rocks glass.

Constructing a two liquor drink is relatively easy. Here are the steps to prepare one:

1. Grab a rocks glass

2. Fill it up with ice

3. Pour liquor

4. Pour liqueur

5. Garnish if needed

Remember when making a two liquor cocktail, pour the lighter liquor first, and the heavier liqueur on top of it. This will allow the liqueur to sink down to the liquor to let gravity do the mixing for you a bit. Liqueurs are always heavier than liquors since it has a lot of sugar in it.

Here is a nice video I found on YouTube constructing a White Russian, which is a two liquor drink.

As you saw the bartender in this video followed the construction steps described above.

With that in mind, here are some classic two liqueur drinks that you must memorize since customers order it a lot.

Vodka Based

Black Russian

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

1/2 oz. Kahlua

White Russian

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

1/2 oz. Kahlua

Float Cream on top

Godmother

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

1/2 oz. Amaretto

God Daughter

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

1/2 oz. Amaretto

Float Cream on top

Vodka Gimlet

1 1/2 oz. Vodka

1/2 oz. Rose's Lime Juice

Garnish: Lime

Brandy Based

Dirty Mother

1 1/2 oz. Brandy

1/2 oz. Kahlua

Dirty White Mother

1 1/2 oz. Brandy

1/2 oz. Kahlua

Float cream on top

Stinger

1 1/2 oz. Brandy

1/2 oz. White Creme de Menthe

Scotch Based:

Godfather

1 1/2 oz. Scotch

1/2 oz. Amaretto

Marlon Brando

1 1/2 oz. Scotch

1/2 oz. Amaretto

Float Cream on top

Rusty Nail

1 1/2 oz. Scotch

1/2 oz. Drambuie

Tequila Based:

Brave Bull

1 1/2 oz. Tequila

1/2 oz. Kahlua

All right these are some of the most popular two liquor drinks. It's not a huge list, so it shouldn't be too difficult to memorize it all.

As always, I do recommend you go out and actually try making the cocktails for yourself to figure out what each of them actually tastes like.

Well, good luck studying, and till next time, Cheers!

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Lesson 8: Highball Drinks

Lesson 10: Liqueur - Part 1