Cosmopolitan Cocktail (Dale DeGroff's recipe)

How to make:

1. Select and pre-chill a Martini glass.
2. Prepare orange zest for garnish.
3. SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
4. FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
5. Express flamed orange zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Review:

This is the definitive Cosmo recipe from the man most associated with the drink's development and popularity.

Variant:

Cosmopolitan (Difford's recipe)
Cosmopolitan (1934 recipe)
Cosmopolitan (Toby Cecchini's recipe)

History:

In his 2002 The Craft of the Cocktail, Dale DeGroff explains that while he did not invent the Cosmopolitan, "What I did do was popularize a definitive recipe that became widely accepted as the standard." He also gives the above recipe but with just ½oz (15ml) Cointreau, a measure which he increased to ¾oz (22.5ml) for the 2020 Revised Edition of his book. This could be as much due to a reduction of sugar in Cointreau to conform with fashion since Dale created his recipe at Manhattan's Rainbow Rooms in the mid-1990s as his revisiting and polishing an old recipe.

Cosmopolitan
1½ ounces citron vodka
½ ounce Cointreau
¼ ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce cranberry juice
Flamed orange coin for garnish
Shake all the ingredients (except the garnish) with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the flamed orange zest coin.

Dale DeGroff, The Craft Of The Cocktail, 2002

COSMOPOLITAN
1½ ounces Absolut Citron vodka
¾ ounce Cointreau
¼ ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce cranberry juice
Flamed orange coin for garnish
Shake all the ingredients (except the garnish) with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the flamed orange zest coin.

Dale DeGroff, The New Craft Of The Cocktail, 2020

See Cosmopolitan cocktail history for Dale's role in the development of this contemporary classic.

More cocktails by Dale DeGroff

Nutrition:

166 calories

Alcohol content:

• 1.4 standard drinks
• 18.91% alc./vol. (37.82° proof)
• 19.9 grams of pure alcohol