Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Set out to impress with these classy Valentine’s Day cocktails

Raise a glass with these romantic drink options

By
Valentine's Day heart decorations.
Unsplash

With February already arrived, now is the time to start thinking about your Valentine’s Day celebrations. If you’re planning to spend a day with a special someone, or if you’d rather have a fun evening with friends, then in any case some special drinks are always welcome. These classic and classy cocktail options have tried and tested flavors but a little twist of something special to celebrate the occasion.

Bruichladdich’s ‘Not Your Classic’ Manhattan

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ingredients:

  • 2 oz Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie
  • 1 oz Sweet Red Vermouth
  • 2 dashes Aromatic Bitters
  • Cherry for Garnish

Instructions:

  1. Add whisky, sweet vermouth, and bitters to a mixing glass with ice.
  2. Stir until well combined and chilled.
  3. Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
  4. Garnish with a cherry.
Recommended Videos

The Botanist Gin Clover Club

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ingredients:

  • 2 oz The Botanist
  • 0.5 oz Lemon Juice, Freshly Squeezed
  • 0.5 oz Raspberry Syrup
  • 1 Egg White
  • Raspberries

Instructions:

  1. Add The Botanist, lemon juice, raspberry syrup, and egg white into a shaker and shake vigorously for five seconds.
  2. Add ice and shake until well-chilled, approximately ten seconds.
  3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
  4. Garnish with three speared raspberries.

Mount Gay’s Strawberry Feels

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ingredients:

  • 2oz XO
  • .25 oz Simple Syrup
  • 2 Strawberries (de-stemmed and halved)
  • 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Instructions:

  1. Add simple syrup and strawberries to mixing glass.
  2. Gently muddle to break down strawberries and infuse.
  3. Add rum, bitters and ice.
  4. Stir and fin strain over big cube in rocks glass.
  5. Garnish with orange peel or strawberry on the glass.

Bardstown Bourbon Hibiscus Gimlet

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Ingredients:

  • .75 oz Freshly squeezed lime juice
  • 1 dash of angostura bitters
  • .25 oz Barrow’s Ginger Liquor
  • 1.5 oz Bardstown Bourbon Fusion Series
  • To taste: Hibiscus tea simple syrup
    • 4 bags of hibiscus tea
    • .75 cup white sugar
    • 2 cups of water
    • Add all ingredients to a pot, cook until sugar is dissolved, and tea has steeped. Remove tea bags. Let cool.

Instructions:

  1. Shake
  2. Garnish: Rosemary sprig and a sprinkle of salt
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Georgina Torbet is a cocktail enthusiast based in Berlin, with an ever-growing gin collection and a love for trying out new…

Editors’ Recommendations

How to mix a mini mezcal Cosmo straight out of the ’90s
A 90s cocktail icon given the agave spirits treatment
Mezcal Union Cosmopolitan.

Labor Day Weekend may be over but the calendar still says summer for another few weeks. Make the most of it with a refreshing drink, whether that's a non-alcoholic beer after a long hike or trying your hand at a frozen cocktail recipe at home. Whatever you're in the mood for, we've likely got it here at The Manual.

Mini cocktails are enjoying the moment, the product of folks wanting to moderate a bit (or just have more smaller drinks). We're seeing them in bars across the land, from Los Angeles to New York City. And we just got a great recipe from an agave spirits brand we like. Best, the drink plays the nostalgia game and throws some love at the 90s.

Read more
Why Calvados is the fall spirit you didn’t know you needed
The French spirit that tastes like sweater weather in a glass
Calvados

If you're still clinging to whiskey like a security blanket once the temperature dips below 70, it’s time we had a little chat. There’s a better, more apple-forward way to drink your way through fall, and it’s not another cloying cider or overpriced cocktail. It’s Calvados — France’s apple brandy that tastes like someone distilled your favorite sweater, your grandma’s pie, and a walk through crunchy autumn leaves. And guess what? It’s been waiting patiently while you've been flirting with bourbon. Let’s fix that.
Calvados has long been pigeonholed as a dusty relic — something your beret-wearing great-uncle might sip while recounting tales of the French countryside. For a while, that stereotype wasn’t entirely off. Calvados did suffer from a bit of an old-school image problem: fusty bottles, confusing regional labels, and the kind of branding that screams “heritage” but whispers “boring.”
But the tides are turning. Modern Calvados producers are leaning into the spirit’s natural versatility, shaking off the mothballs and giving us cleaner, more fruit-forward bottles that play beautifully in cocktails without losing their Old World soul. Bartenders are catching on, and savvy home drinkers? They're starting to stash Calvados right next to their rye, and for good reason.

What is Calvados?

Read more
Your morning coffee might hold the secret to a happier day, study finds
Coffee really does make us happier
coffee to go cup

Most coffee drinkers would likely already agree their morning cup of coffee makes them happier -- but a new study now supports this claim. A recently published study in the journal Scientific Reports by researchers at the University of Warwick and Bielefeld University found that study participants reported feeling happier and more enthusiastic compared to those who had not yet had their morning cup of coffee. Individuals in the study received questions on their phone several times a day, requiring them to report how they currently felt and how recently they consumed caffeine.

The study followed 200 young adults over the course of four weeks, measuring reported moods before and after consuming coffee. A professor involved in the study at the University of Warwick commented that the positive mood boost occurs as caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors in the brain. The study focused on caffeine consumption in everyday life and not in an artificial lab setting.

Read more