Name: Screwdriver (Difford's recipe)
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 50 ml Vodka; 60 ml Orange juice; 5 ml Sugar syrup (2:1); 2 dash Orange bitters

Screwdriver (Difford's recipe)
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Glass:

Serve in a Highball (max 10oz/300ml)

Ingredients:
1 ²⁄₃ oz	Ketel One Vodka from freezer
2 oz	Orange juice (freshly squeezed) chilled
¹⁄₆ oz	Monin Pure Cane Syrup (65.0°brix, equivalent to 2:1 rich syrup)
2 dash	Orange Bitters by Angostura

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

Prepare:

Select and pre-chill a HIGHBALL (MAX 10OZ/300ML) GLASS.
Prepare garnish of orange slice wheel.

How to make:

Briefly STIR all ingredients with ice.
STRAIN into ice-filled glass.

Garnish:

Garnish with orange slice.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Cocktail of the day:

14th December 2025 is National Screwdriver Day

Review:

The temperature at which this cocktail is served and the freshness of the orange juice are crucial to its success, but it's perhaps better made into a Harvey Wallbanger.

My own preference is to make Screwdrivers with a whopping 75ml of vodka, 90ml orange juice, 7.5ml rich sugar syrup, and 3 dashes of orange bitters, served in a Collins glass. I like the grainy bite the generous measure of vodka adds, but it's a punchy cocktail, so I have cut the ingredients back by a third and used a smaller Highball glass for sobriety, while retaining the ratios.

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Variant:

Harvey Wallbanger

History:

Legend has it that this cocktail first appeared in the late 1940s in Iran, where parched American oil engineers working in the desert supposedly added orange juice to their vodka and stirred it with the nearest thing to hand, usually a screwdriver in their work clothes pocket.

This is partly supported by the following reference to the drink in the 24th October 1949 issue of Time Magazine, "In the dimly lighted bar of the sleek Park Hotel, Turkish intelligence agents mingle with American engineers and Balkan refugees, drinking the latest Yankee concoction of vodka and orange juice, called a 'screwdriver'."

Nutrition:

One serving of Screwdriver (Difford's recipe) contains 154 calories

Alcohol content:

1.1 standard drinks
13.74% alc./vol. (27.48° proof)
15.9 grams of pure alcohol

More Classic/vintage cocktails

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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Showing 3 comments for Screwdriver (Difford's recipe).
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Lorenz Kock

11th April 2022 at 22:35

The thinking men's vodka orange or "mische" as we say in Germany

Hunter Newsome

11th February 2021 at 23:18

Why 2.5 shot of vodka and not 2 shot in this one?

Hunter Newsome

25th September 2021 at 21:13

Initially I was just wondering, but now I understand that the bitters buffer the heat of the vodka, while the extra half measure adds some richer body to the drink. Both versions are great.