15 Must-Try Asian Cocktails

The gorgeous sign of springtime in Japan, cherry blossoms are the pride and joy of Japanese landscapes. The highball is the king of Japanese cocktails, a simple mix of Whiskey and soda. This cherry blossom highball recipe adds cherry blossom liqueur from Suntory, one of Japan’s most notable spirit brands. It is a delicate, subtly sweet cocktail that’s pale pink like the first flowering of its namesake tree.

Another Japanese-themed cocktail, Tokyo Rose, is a sweet and vibrantly colored sake cocktail. Blending the dry and slightly bitter rice wine with peach schnapps, orange, and cranberry juice, this drink reminds me of a cross between a tequila sunrise and sangria. The recipe makes one drink, but you can easily scale up to make a pitcher.

This Asian inspired cocktail is a Tiki classic, combining light and dark rum, orange liqueur, and one of the most beloved Asian fruits, lychee. This cocktail calls for whole lychee and lychee juice blended with ice to create a wonderful fruit smoothie texture. This recipe gives you the option to make a single cocktail or a blender’s worth. 

Ginger is the quintessential Asian aromatic, used in most dishes and sauces across the vast continent. Ginger’s spicy flavor and strong scent normally emerge when combined with heat. This clever sake and vodka recipe releases ginger’s flavor by muddling it in the bottom of the cocktail shaker. The spicy and harsh flavors of sake and ginger get a sweet complement with a dash of extra sweet simple syrup.

This elegant gin cocktail offers the perfect balance of tart, herby, and sweet. It is an easy recipe that makes a pitcher of cocktails for a classy dinner party. The floral gin and spicy gender receive a cooling and tart balance with the mint and lime juice. You also get to make simple syrup from scratch to add at your discretion.

Yuzu is a popular citrus fruit native to East Asia, combining the flavors of grapefruit and mandarin for a tart yet fragrant juice. This Yuzu Gin Cocktail uses yuzu juice to add a tart fragrance to floral gin, with a dash of soda water and simple syrup. It’s a simple one-cup recipe, wherein you add all ingredients to a cup and stir!

Another elegant and aromatic gin cocktail, Asia Daisy requires various steps to capitalize on the flavors of every ingredient. Muddled lime brings a bright tartness to rich lychee liqueur, botanical gin, and simple syrup. Everything gets topped off with a refreshing pour of ginger ale. It’s a well-rounded recipe worth the effort.

This deliciously rich and refreshing Chinese Fizz cocktail combines dark rum with Luxardo liqueur, angostura bitters, and Cointreau, emulating rum Old Fashioned. However, the addition of egg whites and lemon juice gives it a tart and frothy texture. Not a rum sour or an old fashioned, this unique cocktail is in a category all its own.

An Asian inspired twist on a classic Cuban specialty, this Asian Pear Mojito is the perfect fall cocktail. Using crisp and crunchy Asian pears and honey simple syrup, along with lime juice and mint leaves for muddling, this drink offers a more refined and complex flavor profile.

Martinis are two-ingredient cocktails renowned as the classiest drink for dinner parties and date nights. This Sake Lychee Martini upholds the golden standard of perfect simplicity, combining dry sake with lychee juice in a shaker with ice. The result is a refreshing, subtly sweet, and smooth Asian-inspired martini, using lychee instead of an olive for garnish.

Considering all the overlap between Mexican and Thai climates, it’s easy to reimagine the margarita as a tropical Thai drink. This incredibly fragrant Thai Lemongrass Margarita muddles lemongrass, agave, cilantro, and ginger before adding the classic tequila, lime, and triple sec trifecta. The muddled roots and herbs add an award-winning depth of flavor.

Another Asian citrus fruit, kumquats are essentially small oranges with edible peels. The Thai Basil Kumquat Mojito muddles kumquat slices and Thai basil instead of lime and mint, making for a sweeter, earthier foundation for the rum. Adding lime simple syrup gives it a distinct lime flavor without adding tartness.

Sweet and spicy is a classic combination, but sour and spicy is a novel idea. Kyoto Sour is a tart cocktail with a spicy finish due to the addition of green Tabasco sauce to Sake and citrus. The combination of bitter grapefruit juice, lemon juice, and agave makes this cocktail gives it the most well-balanced flavor of all cocktails on my list.

This summery recipe comes compliments of Grey Goose vodka to showcase the delicious orange-flavored vodka variety. Grey Goose L’Orange, orange liqueur, ginger, and lime offer an explosion of citrus with every sip. The most interesting part is the sesame seed oil and sugar-coated rim, which adds an unmistakable Asian flavor to the nose of the cocktail.

This simple take on the classic vodka and ginger beer cocktail uses pear-flavored vodka and ginger beer for a refreshing taste of fall. It is the easiest cocktail to make, requiring you only to add ginger beer and vodka to a glass with ice. You can top it off with soda water, but I like upping the proportion of ginger beer for added sweetness.