When it comes to a good birthday celebration, you need to get things just right.
And quite often, that also means having good food and drink!
That can include your favorite meal, your favorite cuisine, and plenty of other great things.
However, when it comes to getting the best or sweetest drink, you probably aren’t going to find anything better than a good birthday cocktail!
So, if you love the taste of a good mixed drink, then you’re probably going to want some inspiration before you get stuck into finding the right glass or ingredients.
Well, this is where our list comes into the picture!
In this guide, we’re going to show you some of the tastiest cocktails out there that you can prep for a birthday, whether as a treat for yourself, or the perfect drink to serve to a lucky friend.
1. Birthday Cake Martini
Starting this birthday list with a bag, we have a cocktail recipe that is primed for making anybody’s special day feel that much more special!
What birthday isn’t complete without a cake?
So, we figured that a birthday could only be improved by having a cocktail with birthday cake flavors hidden inside it.
How did they manage to get all those sweet flavors into a sweet-treat cocktail dessert?
Well, you’ll have to click on the link to find out for yourself!
2. Margarita Floats
Don’t worry, not every cocktail recipe is going to be an incredibly sweet confectionary stuffed into a glass in liquid form.
Although given the delectably delightful dry sweetness of this margarita recipe, you won’t be missing out on any sweetness, that’s for sure!
These drinks are perfect for those birthdays that are best enjoyed out under the hot sun, and are the perfect way to cool off too!
3. Cerveza Margaritas
We do love a good margarita as part of a birthday celebration here!
Whether it is your special day or a day spent under the hot sun, this is the perfect drink to cap off any day with.
Plus, with there only a few steps to this recipe, it’s incredibly easy for pretty much anyone to try making for themselves.
Just run through the ingredients list (an amazingly short and sweet ingredient list, might we add), and you’ll be ready to make the perfect summer spring-step sipping drink for yourself or your friends!
4. Chocolate Cake Shot
Of course, when it comes to a birthday treat, very little can beat chocolate cake, if anything.
So, by that logic, no cocktail should be able to top this chocolate cake shot as a birthday drink!
Whilst the color of this shooter glass is deceptively clear, don’t let that fool you. This tastes exactly as you would imagine a chocolate cake would taste in liquid (and alcoholic) form!
Thanks to the warm hazelnut liquor taste, served with vanilla vodka, you have all the essential flavors there of a classic cake, ready to be down in one gulp.
Plus, the lemon is a welcome shot of sour and bitter flavors to an otherwise overwhelmingly sweet shot glass.
Though, if you have a sweet tooth, by all means, leave the lemon at home!
5. Boozy Funfetti Birthday Cake Milkshake
Yeah, if it isn’t already clear at this point, we are hammering home the ‘birthday’ aspect of some of these cocktails.
And why shouldn’t we? With delicious flavors such as this vodka and ice cream-filled milkshake cocktail, it’s hard not to want to celebrate something with these drinks!
One of the best parts of this particular cocktail is that almost any ingredients you want can be added to it, from sherbert extras to chocolate hazelnut liquor, to pretty much any soluble additives.
Go nuts with this one!
6. Pink Starburst Cocktail
Do you want to celebrate your birthday with a classic throwback to this childhood candy?
Then this is the perfect cocktail for you. Orange, kiwi, and strawberry juices are all added to bubbly to add an adult spin on this nostalgic sweet.
Obviously, it’s served with pink starburst on the side.
Make sure you add plenty of ice to this recipe!
7. Raspberry Champagne Float
Who doesn’t love a good float? Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic?
Well, if you love your floats with more fruity tones, then this is absolutely the float recipe for you!
This is the perfect celebration drink.
Starting by eating the sorbet or sherbet used in this recipe with a spoon, you’ll soon find that it gets smoother to drink as the night goes on, as they mix and dissolve into the fruity champagne that this recipe calls for!
8. Jack Frost Winter Cocktail
If you think that there are no good colder season-themed cocktails for those birthdays that fall in fall or winter, don’t worry!
With recipes like this Jack Frost cocktail, there are plenty of flavors all year round!
Plus, this is a recipe that can be thrown together in just a few minutes, making it super simple to make too!
9. Sparkling Sangria
A much-loved drink across the Iberian Peninsula in Spain and Portugal, sangria is the perfect cocktail to celebrate a warm and welcome birthday with!
The ingredient list for this recipe might be a little long, but the flavors will make it all worth it in the end!
10. Boozy Creamsicle Float
Like we said before, we love a good float recipe here, so we are going to share our love for this alcoholic float of choice!
With a combination of orange soda, cream vodka, and vanilla ice cream like this, how could you not love this cocktail?
11. Cotton Candy Champagne Cocktails
Do you love cotton candy? Do you love a little bubbly champagne?
If you’ve ever thought to mix those two favorite ingredients of yours, you’re not the only one!
And, if this recipe is anything to go by, it’s a very good idea indeed!
12. Chocolate Cake Martini
Well, we couldn’t get enough chocolate flavors in our favorite liquors, so we thought we’d include another one!
This particular cocktail takes the form of a chocolate flavor-infused martini, meaning that this is a cake cocktail that can be enjoyed over a longer period, rather than simply being downed in one mouthful!
13. Irish Coffee
Ah, a classic creamy cocktail, that we’re betting most people have at least heard of.
A combination of Irish cream, Irish whiskey, and whipped cream to top the whole thing off, this is the perfect birthday cocktail for a warm night inside!
14. Sparkling Vanilla Macaron Cocktail
French macarons are a staple party treat for millions of people across the world.
Loved for their firm texture that turns soft and sublime once broken, there’s a reason that there are hundreds of thousands of recipe ideas for these little confectionaries.
So, seeing them combined with champagne into a sweet cocktail birthday treat will also be a win in our books!
15. Shark Bite
If vodka is your spirit of choice, we invite you to try the Shark Bite cocktail. Adding a splash of gatorade and lemonade gives the drink a wonderful pinky red color.
But where do the sharks come into play, we hear you ask?
The name comes from the adorable addition of gummy shark sweets placed between the ice cubes. This gives them the appearance of swimming in red water.
A slightly darker meaning behind this drink, but that doesn’t make it any less tasty!
16. Bellini
Peaches are an underutilized fruit when it comes to cocktails, at least as far as we know.
So, what happens when you combine the slow, but the strong sweetness of this stoned fruit with a little prosecco?
You get an amazing dessert-primed cocktail to drink on your birthday, is the answer, it turns out!
17. Frozen Inspired Cocktail
This one is for both the grown-ups that love a colorful cocktail and those that are still Disney kids at heart!
The almost glowing blue colors of this cocktail remind you of Elsa’s freezing blizzards.
When coupled with the sugar around the rim to reflect snow and ice crystals, you get a winter-freezing effect that looks as chilly and cooling as it is to drink!
18. Passion Fruit Hurricanes
Passion fruit is a fruit that was almost tailored built o be put in an exciting cocktail.
So, you need to make sure that you find a recipe that uses it to its full potential.
Fortunately, with this amazing Hurricane cocktail recipe, it has found a recipe that is perfect for any celebrated event, including your birthday too!
19. Paloma
We’ve covered quite a few different margarita recipes in this guide, so perhaps it is time that we shed a little spotlight on another Mexican cocktail that is perfect for celebrations.
Whilst perhaps not as well known as its more famous cousin, the Paloma cocktail is another tequila-infused cocktail that deserves just as much praise as any of the best margaritas out there.
Using a little grape juice soda, this is a light yet fruity drink that anyone looking for a different tequila cocktail can appreciate!
20. Chocolate Chip Shooters
While we do love ourselves a refined drink to tackle over an hour or an evening, sometimes you just need that hit of sweetness in your system, you know?
So, we’re happy to share another amazing chocolate-flavored shooter recipe that is perfect to hand out at a birthday party with family and friends!
After all, a shooter can’t be appreciated until it is shared with others!
21. Cotton Candy Champagne Cocktail
We just can’t get enough of this amazing combination of the soft, yet powerful sweetness, coupled with a bubbly texture as it sits in your mouth that this kind of cocktail gives us!
22. Rose Wine Spritzer
Spritzers are a pretty classy cocktail, whilst still not losing any flavor or character at the same time.
This rose wine variety spritzer is a great example of that principle: Getting the most flavor out of your wine cocktail, without sacrificing anything in terms of grace.
A simple, yet effective drink for any birthday celebration.
23. Mickey Mouse Cocktail
Time for another Disney-themed cocktail!
With a little helping of cherry vodka for those iconic Mickey pants, as well as some passion fruit grenadine, syrup, and sugar too, this drink will be as sweet as the world’s happiest place’s mascot.
One sip of this drink, and you’ll be squealing ‘Oh boy!’ too!
24. Basil Citrus Cocktail
What if you hadn’t thought to add basil to a cocktail before?
Mint’s not the only herb around that comes to whip up some mean cocktails, that’s for sure!
Being just as fruity as any other cocktail on this list, whilst being light on the calorie front too, this drink isn’t just delicious, but is also surprisingly healthy!
Make sure that you muddle the basil leaves at the bottom of the drink well, before you start adding all your other ingredients!
25. Blue Lagoon
Ah, a true classic of cocktail menus around the world!
This icy-blue cocktail is refreshing us simply by looking at it!
The stark colors carry through to the flavors that this cocktail has, too.
With lemonade, blue curacao, as well as vodka blended into it for good measure, you have a cocktail that is rich in sweet flavors that are enough to fill any sugar rush that you are craving right now!
26. Kahlua White Russian
A white Russian is an iconic cocktail in its own right, this version of the recipe infuses delicious dessert butterscotch flavors into the mix, to create one hell of a drink for your birthday!
27. Ginger Mint Julep Cocktail
We do love a nice mint julep cocktail on our special day.
So, allow us to share one of our favorite drinks with you on yours!
28. Salted Caramel Coffee Cocktail
What party wouldn’t be complete without a salted caramel cocktail in your belly?
This classic cocktail, with its heavy use of caramel ice cream, caramel Kahlua, and ice cream, is the perfect dessert note to end on a birthday!
Final Thoughts
As you can see, finding a good cocktail for your birthday is the easy part.
Picking just one or two of these drinks? Now that’s the tough part!
Frequently Asked Questions
That can feel like a somewhat superfluous question, but it is important to distinguish what exactly makes a cocktail from simply pouring some spirit into any old soda.
Technically speaking, the Oxford Dictionary defines a cocktail as an ‘alcoholic drink that consists of a spirit (or spirits) mixed with other ingredients’.
This delightfully vague and open definition covers pretty much any kind of mixed alcoholic drink that we have discussed.
So long as a spirit is mixed with some other ingredients, such as cream, tonic water, other spirits, or citrus juice and/or flavors.
So, technically, yes. That vodka and coke that you order from the bar would technically count as a cocktail.
However, when it comes to making a good, distinctive cocktail, there are often a few key components that need to be taken into account.
After all, many of us likely already know that simply mixing spirits won’t make a good cocktail (either from common sense, or, as some of us have learned, from experience).
Generally speaking, there are 3 to 4 main components that will go into a well-balanced cocktail:
– Spirits
– Sugar
– Water/ice
– Bitters
Each component makes sure that the others will not make a drink that is overpowering in some way to drink.
Whilst it is possible to make a good cocktail with just 3 of these components, these are absolutely the key factors that you should keep in mind when coming up with your recipe for a cocktail.
This is even useful information for checking to see whether a new recipe you have found (such as the ones we have discussed here), is going to be right for you.
28 Of The Tastiest Birthday Cocktails
Are you looking for the perfect cocktail to make for your upcoming birthday party? Need a little inspiration? Then this guide has plenty to offer you!
Ingredients
Directions
- Pick a recipe from the list above
- Click the recipe name and visit the website
- Collect the ingredients and cook the food
- Enjoy – don’t forget to leave a review
Recipe Video
Cooking is great for your mental, physical, and emotional health. What’s the worst that could happen? Find a recipe that you like the sound of and cook it along with me. You might even unlock a new passion!
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