Stinger Cocktail Recipe

The Stinger’s minty, lightly sweet profile makes it the perfect after-dinner or indulgent dinner drink – cooling yet warmly spirit-forward, totally refreshing: its sweet-mint chill settles the palate after a rich meal, while Rémy VSOP’s silky texture lingers like dessert in a glass. As a late-evening night-cap – a final, modest-sized drink taken to ease conversation toward bedtime – it offers just enough alcohol to warm, with mint to refresh. Present it at any refined soirée, from winter holiday parties to summertime roof-garden gatherings, whenever guests crave a simple cocktail that feels at once vintage and vivifying.

Menthe matters: choose a high-quality white crème de menthe for pure, bright peppermint; liqueur de menthe (often less sweet) suits drier palates.

Keep it Arctic: shake until shards of ice rattle like sleet – maximum chill blunts excess sugar and sharpens mint.

Clear-cube craft: when serving on the rocks, use one pristine cube to cool without flooding flavour.

Mint aromatics: slap the mint sprig gently between your palms before garnishing; this bruises leaves, releasing oils that dance with the cognac’s subtle liquorice note.

The origin story traces back to high-society circles in Gilded-Age Manhattan. ‘Reggie’ (aka Reginald Vanderbilt) reportedly mixed Stingers for guests, and the Stinger was already in pre-Prohibition manuals like Jacques Straub’s Drinks (1914) and Cocktail Book entries thereafter. Surviving Prohibition, it resurfaced in Hollywood and pop culture – favored by Sinatra and Crosby, sipped by Bond and diamond thieves – cementing its place as an evergreen symbol of urbane taste. Today it remains listed by the International Bartenders Association as a two-ingredient standard.