15 Absolute Best Cocktails If You Like Drinking Ginger Beer

Ginger beer is like ginger ale's more sophisticated and flavorful cousin. Whereas ginger ale tends to be very sweet and a bit bland, most ginger beers pack a pretty serious gingery bite, as they usually contain a varying quantity of real ginger. They also tend to be much dryer than ginger ale, which makes them the perfect base for a wide variety of cocktails. It turns out that there are far more ginger-beer-based cocktails than you probably realized, and we're only scratching the surface with our 15, but it will get you started.

While you don't usually need to show your ID to buy a ginger beer, they can be somewhat alcoholic. That intense kick you get from them is not all ginger since the fizziness generally comes from fermentation. While some have 1-5% alcohol by volume (ABV), most you find at the grocery store are going to be closer to 0.5% ABV if they're alcoholic at all. So, even the drinks on our lists that look like mocktails may have a little alcohol in them depending on what brand of ginger beer you use.

Our list includes some standards you may have heard of or tried before as well as some unusual ones. Whether you like gin, whiskey, rum, tequila, vodka, or more non-traditional liquors, you're likely to find an interesting ginger beer cocktail among our 15.

The first ginger beer cocktail on our list of must-tries is Fernet and Ginger Beer, which packs quite a flavor punch. What's Fernet? We're glad you asked. Fernet is an Italian liqueur that's become a recent obsession with bartenders and bar-goers alike. Each brand tastes a little different since producers make it with a secret concoction of herbs, spices, bark, roots, and other ingredients, blended with distilled wine. Ingredients include everything from myrrh, red cinchona bark, and galangal to saffron, cardamom, and rhubarb. It's a somewhat bitter alcohol, and it's been used as a digestif over the years for stomach ailments, including cholera.

Fernet and Ginger Beer is simple to make once you've located a bottle of fernet. Simply fill a tall glass (like a LEMONSODA Tom Collins Glass) with ice, add an ounce of Fernet, squeeze in some fresh juice from an orange wedge, fill the rest of the glass with ginger beer, and stir. For added flavor, you can rub the oils from the orange peel onto the rim of the glass before using the remainder of the orange wedge as a garnish.

If you love both gin and ginger beer, your next obsession is probably going to be the Foghorn. It's a throwback drink from the early 1900s, and it may remind you of a Moscow Mule (we'll get to that one a little later).

Foghorn was a drink you could find at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel back in the day. We found an early version in a book called "The Ideal Bartender," which was written by Tom Bullock in 1917. This recipe uses Old Tom gin, which was a popular style in the early 1800s and has only recently come back into fashion. Luckily, if you can't find an Old-Tom-style gin, you can still recreate the spirit of this drink with a London dry gin.

Bullock's original recipe calls for ginger ale, but it certainly has more bite made with ginger beer. His recipe also calls for a half-and-half mixture of lemon and lime juice — presumably enough to fill a jigger since everything else in the recipe is measured in jiggers, which can range from 0.5 to 2.5 ounces. You'll add the jigger of lemon and lime juice, a teaspoon of bar sugar (caster sugar), and a jigger of Old Tom gin into a glass filled with ice, stir, strain everything into another tall glass, and fill the rest of the new glass with ginger beer.

If you're familiar with shandies, the type you've likely had has been a mixture of a regular beer and lemonade or some other non-alcoholic beverage like juice. However, the first shandies were made with a mixture of ginger beer or ginger ale (likely alcoholic versions) and regular beer. Interestingly, they weren't called shandies when they first appeared in England in the 1800s. In fact, Charles Dickens and his contemporaries called them "shandygaffs" before the name got shortened.

Over the years, ginger beer came to be substituted with fizzy lemonade, ordinary lemonade, or other juices, and shandygaffs became known as shandies. So, creating a Ginger Shandy can be a throwback to its origins. All you need to do is add ice to a glass, fill it halfway with ginger beer, and fill the other half with wheat beer. Lime works nicely as a garnish for Ginger Shandies. Since the drink requires using two half bottles of ginger beer and beer, it's a drink best shared with a friend.

Moving on to cocktails containing rum and ginger beer, we have the Autumn Smash. Everything about this cocktail screams autumn, especially the addition of apple cider and amaro.

Smashes aren't new, as they've been around since at least the early 1860s. That said, there's not any real rule governing smashes. However, most are fruity and served cold. It's common for them to be created with seasonal fruits, which is why adding apple cider to an Autumn Smash is appropriate. The drink also contains amaro, which, like fernet, is an Italian digestif usually made with grape brandy and containing a wide variety of herbs, barks, flowers, and more. The warm spices as well as the ginger in the ginger beer add to the autumnal note.

To make an Autumn Smash, you add an ounce each of dark rum and apple cider, ½ ounce of amaro, ¼ ounce of lemon juice, and two dashes of orange bitters (like Fee Brothers West Indian Orange Cocktail Bitters) to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. After shaking and straining into your cocktail glass, you'll top it off with ginger beer and add a lemon twist, if you want a garnish.

As autumn turns to winter and the days get colder and darker, spices in our drinks tend to grow more intense, which is the case for the Wintery Christmas Pimm's Cup. It's another ginger beer drink featuring rum — specifically, spiced rum — as well as extra spices and fruits.

The original Pimm's Cup was a British drink invented by a man named James Pimm between 1823 and 1840 at his Oyster house in South London. Pimm's No. 1 Cup was a digestif that initially contained gin, quinine, and herbs. Pimm's Original cocktail calls for Pimm's No. 1 Cup and lemonade poured on top of oranges, strawberries, and cucumber and topped with mint. However, the wintry version uses more seasonally appropriate ingredients.

Unfortunately, as of October 3, 2024, Pimm's is off the market, but you can make your own with a sliced navel orange and a teaspoon of dried bitter orange peels steeped in ¾ cup of London dry gin and 1 cup of sweet vermouth for 24 to 72 hours (strain to use). Then, to make the cocktail, start by muddling together 1.5 ounces of Pimm's, ½ ounce of spiced rum, and 1 ounce of cranberry juice. Pour that mixture over ice and slices of orange and apple. Finally, top your glass with 2 ounces of ginger beer, a sprig each of red currants and rosemary, and a cinnamon stick.

A standby rum drink with ginger beer that might be more familiar is the Dark and Stormy. This highball drink is considered by some to be Bermuda's unofficial national drink.

The Dark and Stormy had its origins in Bermuda and is rumored to have been named by a sailor who thought the dark colors at the top of the drink made it look like a storm at sea. However, the truth is that the drink originated at a ginger beer factory at the Royal Naval Officer's Club on the island. The authentic version of the drink you get in Bermuda is made with Goslings Black Seal dark rum — a molasses-flavored rum made by a company that began making rum in Bermuda in 1857. The company also makes Goslings Stormy Ginger Beer to pair with it.

While the official version of the drink contains just ginger beer, dark rum, and a lime wedge, there are variations, too. We like the one that starts with a squeeze of a lime wedge into your glass, followed by ice, a layer of 4 ounces of ginger beer, and a few dashes of Angostura Aromatic Bitters. Finally, you create the storm clouds by pouring 1.5 ounces of dark rum over the top. Garnish with another lime wedge, and drink away the clouds.

If tequila is more your speed and you love both ginger beer and margaritas, Clear Skies may be the cocktail you've been looking for. It's essentially a smashup of a dark and stormy cocktail and a margarita. It's called Clear Skies because the tequila doesn't form the same dark clouds that dark rum does when you add it.

Clear Skies is a drink we adapted from sommelier and wine expert Joe Campanale. A bonus ingredient in this cocktail is Amaro Montenegro, which makes it more complex than ordinary ginger beer margaritas. Amaro Montenegro has a citrus, sweet, spicy, bitter, and herbaceous flavor profile, derived from 40 botanical ingredients including a variety of oranges, coriander, marjoram, oregano, artemisia, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

Clear Skies is a drink that starts out by mixing 2 ounces of silver tequila, ¾ ounces of Amaro Montenegro, ½ ounce of lime juice, and 2 dashes of orange bitters in a cocktail shaker. This mixture goes into a glass filled with ice, where you will top it off with ginger beer (Campanale suggests Fever-Tree Ginger Beer). If you want to turn it into a showpiece, add a dash of Angostura Aromatic Bitters last, and let them slowly rain into the drink.

If you find the original Shirley Temple mocktail to be a little on the boring side, the addition of ginger beer may be just what you need to suit your grown-up tastes. It's Shirley Temple after she became a diplomat rather than when she was a golden-curled child actress.

The first Shirley Temple mocktail was supposedly created for her on her tenth birthday in 1932 when she requested a fancy drink like the adults while visiting Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills. Thus, it was a drink made from a mixture of ingredients often available at a bar: ginger ale, grenadine, and a festive maraschino cherry. Some versions substitute lemon-lime soda for the ginger ale, mix the two together, or even add orange juice.

A Grown-Up Shirley Temple keeps the spirit of the drink while adding more flavor. The tablespoon of grenadine and cherries for garnish stay the same. There's also ⅓ cup of freshly squeezed orange juice and orange slices for garnish. Cara Cara oranges provide a superior flavor since they have delicious berry notes. And, of course, there's also a cup of ginger beer, which gives the drink a lot more flavor and character.

The Next-Level Frozen Shirley Temple looks very different on the surface from the original Shirley Temple drink because the ingredients have been reimagined and upgraded. It's kind of like the equivalent of trading your Kool-Aid for real fruit juice and then continuing to embellish.

To make a Next-Level Frozen Shirley Temple, you'll make some superior substitutions for the original ingredients. Instead of ginger ale, you'll need a cup of ginger beer, which has a more intense ginger flavor. Rather than using grenadine, which is notoriously very very sweet, you'll use 2 teaspoons of pomegranate molasses and ½ cup of pomegranate juice for a little extra tanginess. Forget the maraschino cherries because this frozen drink uses a teaspoon of darker, subtler Amarena cherry syrup. You're also going to add 2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice before adding 2 cups of ice and blending. Not only does the grown-up slushy version get Amarena cherries for garnish, but it comes with lime slices and mint leaves. Nice.

Those looking for a vodka and ginger beer option will probably gravitate toward the Moscow Mule. It's a classic for good reason.

The Moscow Mule was the brainchild of Jack Morgan, owner of Cock'n Bull Ginger Beer, and John Martin who owned Smirnoff Vodka. It was the 1940s, and most Americans were still defaulting to gin and whiskey drinks. So, the duo created the Moscow Mule to try to get customers interested in something new. The "Moscow" part of the name is a nod to vodka's Russian origins. Meanwhile, the "mule" part of the name relates to the feisty kick the ginger beer gives it.

You'll want to start with a copper mug (like an Amrules Moscow Mule Mug) filled with ice. Add the juice of ½ a lime to your mug, along with 1 teaspoon of simple syrup (even better if it's infused with mint), 1 ounce of vodka, and 6 ounces of ginger beer. Stir it and add a mint sprig and lime slices as a garnish.

Once the Moscow Mule was out in the wild, it inspired some remixes. Since the Moscow moniker related to the cocktail's inclusion of vodka, substituting the vodka with Irish whiskey turned it into an Irish Mule. This one often comes out during St. Patrick's Day because of its Irish name and all the green garnishes.

Just like the Moscow Mule, the Irish Mule often comes in a copper mug. You fill the mug with ice and then stir in the juice of ½ lime, 1 ounce of Irish whiskey, 1 teaspoon of simple syrup (mint flavored or plain), and 6 ounces of ginger beer. If your Irish whiskey is especially peaty or smoky, you might opt for less whiskey. But you can go up to 2 ounces of Irish whiskey for a bigger bang. Then, it's time for your green garnishes: mint sprigs and lime slices.

The Mamie Taylor has a lot of the same DNA as the Irish Mule. However, this Scotch and ginger drink actually predates the mule drinks so perhaps it helped inspire them.

This drink was born after an opera company returned from a sailing outing on a hot and windy day in 1899. To refresh herself, prima donna Mamie Taylor was looking for a tall drink that wasn't too strong and ordered a claret lemonade. The bartender made something quite different with ginger ale, which she happened to enjoy. When she asked for a twist of lemon peel to soften the flavor, the Mamie Taylor cocktail was born. However, we prefer making it with ginger beer for a stronger flavor and drier finish.

To make the Mamie Taylor, you'll start with a tall highball glass filled with ice. Pour in ¾ ounces of fresh lime juice, 2 ounces of Scotch, and fill the glass to the top with ginger beer. A lime wedge finishes it off — or a lemon wedge if you want to finish yours like Taylor did.

The Horsefeather is a whiskey and ginger beer drink that is popular around Kansas City. While you can get it practically anywhere you go out for a drink in Kansas City, there's no clear history attached to it. Some stories have it coming out of the college town of Lawrence, Kansas, while others are sure it came out of Kansas City itself during the prohibition era. If it was a prohibition-era drink, it would have been placed earlier than the Moscow mule (sometime between 1920 and 1933).

Based on the name and ingredients, Horsefeather is likely a twist on a pre-prohibition drink from around 1895 called a horse's neck or a horse's collar. The horse's neck was a brandy ginger ale with lemon, while the horsefeather is a whiskey ginger beer with lemon. So, they're not too terribly different.

To make a horsefeather, you'll add 2 ounces of whiskey, 4 ounces of ginger beer, and 4 dashes of Angostura bitters to a highball glass full of ice. After stirring, the drink gets your choice of lemon or lime wedge.

The Kentucky Buck is a much newer cocktail featuring bourbon and ginger beer. Despite the name (a nod to bourbon's origins), the Kentucky Buck was invented in San Francisco, California, in 2018 by Erick Castro.

Castro created it as a spring cocktail for the Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco featuring in-season strawberries. Once it was off the menu there, he took it to the Rickhouse where it became a wildly popular signature drink. While we've seen versions of it that use ginger syrup and club soda, it's far better with the kick you get from making it with a strong ginger beer.

To make a Kentucky Buck with ginger beer, you need to throw 2 ounces of bourbon, ¾ ounces of fresh lemon juice, ½ an ounce of simple syrup, 1-2 strawberries, and 2 dashes of Angostura bitters into your cocktail shaker and shake with ice. Strain it into a Collins glass with ice and top it with ginger beer. The best garnishes are lemon wedges and strawberry slices.

The final ginger beer cocktail on our list is one that blends well with several liquor options. It's the creation of Southern chef, Food Network celebrity, and Gullah/Geechee descendent from South Carolina, Kardea Brown. The cocktail Brown shared with us is her Swamp Water.

There are a few ways to make it, and it's more of a drink with a little of this and a little of that instead of exact proportions of ingredients. It starts with a tall glass of iced lemon sweet tea mixed with ginger beer. You can either make the lemon sweet tea with a mixture of lemonade and sweet tea or by squeezing a little fresh lemon juice into your iced tea. Then, it's time to spike your drink with as much bourbon or dark rum as you want. While Brown's recipe calls for alcohol, she says you can easily make it non-alcoholic by omitting the bourbon or rum.