Grasshopper
Mint, chocolate and cream, green as a spring lawn.
Photo: Grasshopper cocktail by TexasDex · CC BY-SA 3.0 · All credits
Ingredients
- 20 ml Spoons A tablespoon and a teaspoon. Crème de menthe - The white one if you can find it; the green gives the drink its famous colour
- 20 ml Spoons A tablespoon and a teaspoon. Crème de cacao - White crème de cacao, for a clean mint-chocolate flavour
- 20 ml Spoons A tablespoon and a teaspoon. Double cream - Or single cream for a lighter drink, or whole milk for a kinder one
- 1 sprig Mint sprig (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Shake equal parts mint, chocolate and cream hard with ice, strain, done.
Method
- Chill a coupe glass.
- Fill a shaker with ice and add the crème de menthe, crème de cacao and cream.
- Shake hard for fifteen seconds, until the tin is properly cold.
- Strain into the chilled glass and rest a mint leaf on the surface.
Serve it
Grasshopper
After-dinner in 1950s New Orleans, where a mint-chocolate-cream drink was exactly the sort of thing the city decided it needed. It went out of fashion for a few decades, which was a mistake: made with good liqueurs and shaken properly, it is a beautiful, silken, faintly ridiculous thing - and the only drink in this book that is legitimately a dessert.
Getting it right
Equal parts is the classic build, and it is a balance worth keeping. The colour comes from green crème de menthe, so if you use the white sort the drink will look like a milkshake and taste identical, which is sometimes the point. Cream, not milk, is what gives the Grasshopper its body, and it must be shaken hard - cream needs cold and violence. Serve it properly chilled in a glass that has been waiting in the freezer, and do not make it in advance.
Tasting notes
Cool mint, soft chocolate and a long, sweet, creamy finish. Gentle, nostalgic and impossible to take seriously, in the best way.
For a Grasshopper's richer cousin, replace the cream with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and blend it - which is what a great many American bars quietly do.