Dirty Banana

Difford’s Guide
Discerning Drinkers (108 ratings)

Serve in a Poco grande

Ingredients:
2 oz Light gold rum (1-3 year old molasses column)
1 oz Galliano Espresso Coffee liqueur
1 oz Giffard Banane du Brésil liqueur
2 oz Single cream/half-and-half
1 fresh Banana (preferably overripe)
× 1 1 serving
Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

  1. Select and pre-chill a Poco grande glass.
  2. Prepare garnish of banana slice.
  3. BLEND all ingredients with 12oz scoop crushed ice.
  4. Garnish with banana slice on rim.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

  • Single cream/half-and-half - Dairy

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol
Medium
Boozy
Strength 5/10
Sweet
Medium
Dry/sour
Sweet to sour 4/10

Review:

A rum-laced banana milkshake dirtied by coffee liqueur. The riper the banana used in this cocktail, the better. (Brown spots on the banana skin = tasty cocktail.) This cocktail makes for a filling dessert, so consider splitting this recipe between two 10oz Highball glasses and sharing with a friend. Or for a smaller single-serve:

Dirty Banana (half-sized recipe)
Glass: Highball (6oz - 10oz /18cl - 30cl)
Garnish: Banana chunk on rim
Method: BLEND all ingredients with half 6oz scoop crushed ice.
30ml (1oz) Light rum (mellow white/gold 1-3 year old)
15ml (½oz) Coffee liqueur
15ml (½oz) Crème de banana
30ml (1oz) Single cream/half-and-half
1/2 fresh Banana (peeled)

View readers' comments

History:

A popular cocktail in Jamaica where we discovered this cocktail in the 1990s.

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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Thierry Vandevelde’s Avatar Thierry Vandevelde
9th February at 13:17
Can't help myself listening to MJs Dirty Diana while swallowing this one. This is no sipper but some kind of guilty pleasure.
8th February at 20:20
Unusually for me, didn’t have any bananas handy, so replaced the cream with banana milkshake. It pushed that sweet almost artificial banana flavour but I loved that. Was generous with the rum which I think kept the sweetness in check and stopped it tipping into full dessert cocktail territory.
22nd November 2023 at 15:58
Love it, however abit too strong for my taste. Had to cut the Havana Club from 6cl to 4cl and added 3cl Bananajuice.
Arjun Ravikumar’s Avatar Arjun Ravikumar
18th August 2023 at 06:35
Absolutely love this one. I've had this enough to have tried a lot of variants. My favorite is subbing in 1.5 oz of Smith & Cross instead of the gold rum, and a drier coffee liqueur (Mr. Black or Tempus Fugit).
18th July 2022 at 03:22
Used coconut cream for the half size no-dairy version which was nice; less nice was trying to compensate for my lack of banana liqueur with twice the banana and another 5ml rum. Maybe it woulda worked had the banana been even riper, but it was just really rum forward. I could still taste everything though, so not awful. Eating a bit of dark chocolate before a sip rounded things out decently!
Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
18th July 2022 at 07:11
A "Highball" glass is not a "Collins" glass - it is much smaller: 6oz - 10oz whereas a Collins glass is 12oz - 14oz. This confusion is not helped by either the glassware or bar industries where the term "Highball" is often used for what are properly called Collins glasses. (Please see our "Highballs" area via site search.)
18th July 2022 at 03:39
Also, is highball right for this? Even using an entire banana it only half filled a rocks glass. Should the banana have been giant?
6th July 2022 at 15:15
I tried this with coffee tequila (Patron) and it was disgusting! All I could taste. Will need to try again with Tia Maria/Khalua
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Anonymous

3rd November 2021 at 18:40
One of my all-time favourites. I add a splosh of banana tea so that it’s not quite so thick. Really tasty and moreish without being overly sickly.
Avatar

Anonymous

4th November 2021 at 11:01
I know ‘splosh’ isn’t very technical, ha ha!
Simon Difford’s Avatar Simon Difford
4th November 2021 at 08:08
Banana tea is a great call. Anyone reading this who doesn't know what 'banana tea' is, then simply type in the search at the top of this page to find our Encyclopedia page on banana tea and how to make it.
31st October 2021 at 15:45
Added 1oz/30ml of white chocolate liquor and switched the Havana club rum for Plantation Barbados rum (gives it a bit more rum taste, which makes it feel a bit more "adult"... which sounds silly because of the added chocolate liquor... Oh well I'm drunk and I'll stand by it, at least til the morning regrets kick in).
benn egan’s Avatar benn egan
30th May 2021 at 18:40
swapped out cream/half & half for vanilla ice cream. very tasty but that's a lotta booze.
15th June 2020 at 21:33
Added Carmel ice cream (small scoop) instead of the cream very tasty