Cocktails
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147 free Cocktails trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
27 free cocktails trivia questions with answers. Are you a cocktail connoisseur or just a casual drinker? Our 147-question cocktails trivia quiz will test your knowledge of classic drinks, famous cocktail recipes, and mixology history. From margaritas to mojitos, see how much you really know about the world of mixed drinks!
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Q 01Which Cuban highball mixes white rum with crushed mint, lime, sugar and soda water?
Mojito
Mojito lore traces the drink to 'El Draque', a 16th-century remedy named after Sir Francis Drake, whose crew took lime, mint and rough cane spirit off Cuba against scurvy and dysentery.
Q 02Legend has the Manhattan invented at an 1870s banquet thrown by the American mother of which future British PM?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie Jerome, supposedly hosted the Manhattan Club banquet for Samuel Tilden, but she was in Europe around the time of Winston's birth that winter, so historians call the tale fiction.
Q 03The short tumbler also known as a rocks glass or lowball shares its name with which whiskey cocktail?
Old Fashioned
The Old Fashioned gave its name to the glass it is served in; the drink was itself named in the 1880s, when drinkers tired of fancy new mixtures asked for cocktails made the old-fashioned way.
Q 04The Sazerac, rinsed in absinthe or Herbsaint, is the official cocktail of which city?
New Orleans
New Orleans got the Sazerac as its official cocktail from the Louisiana Legislature in June 2008, only after a bill to make it the state cocktail was voted down.
Q 05Which three-piece cocktail shaker has a built-in strainer and a small cap on top?
Cobbler shaker
The cobbler shaker's built-in strainer, a three-piece design patented in 1884, lets a home bartender pour straight from the tin, where a two-piece shaker needs a separate strainer.
Q 06Besides tequila and lime juice, a classic Margarita is shaken with which French liqueur?
Cointreau
Cointreau, a triple sec, completes the classic recipe; one of several rival origin tales credits socialite Margarita Sames, who said she first mixed the drink for guests in Acapulco in 1948.
Q 07Orgeat syrup, made from almonds, is a classic ingredient in which tiki cocktail?
Mai Tai
The Mai Tai was named, Trader Vic said, when a friend visiting from Tahiti tasted his 1944 creation and cried 'Mai tai roa aé', which he translated as 'out of this world'.
Q 08Which style of beer is mixed with bubbly to make a Black Velvet?
Stout
Stout, usually Guinness, gives the Black Velvet its colour; the drink is said to have been created at Brooks's Club in London in 1861 to mourn the death of Prince Albert.
Q 09Tonic water was originally mixed with gin to make which bitter antimalarial drug more palatable?
Quinine
Quinine, the bitter cinchona-bark antimalarial, was taken by the British in colonial India with soda, sugar and their gin, so the daily dose went down as a drink rather than a medicine.
Q 10The Kentucky Derby's mint julep is traditionally served in a cup of silver or which other metal?
Pewter
Silver or pewter cups are held only by the top and bottom edges so frost can form on the outside; the Derby's premium versions have come in gold-plated cups with silver straws.
Q 11Which cocktail typically includes both gin and green Chartreuse?
Last Word
The Last Word, equal parts gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino and lime, was on the Detroit Athletic Club's menu by 1916, then lay forgotten until Seattle bartender Murray Stenson found it in an old book in 2003.
Q 12Adding an egg white to a Whiskey Sour gives a variant named after which US city?
Boston
A Boston sour is the egg-white version, usually shaken first without ice so the white whips into a foam; float red wine on top instead and it becomes a New York sour.
Q 13Which New Orleans fizz is famous for its long shake and orange flower water?
Ramos Gin Fizz
The Ramos Gin Fizz, created by Henry C. Ramos at his Imperial Cabinet Saloon in 1888, took so long to shake that the bar kept some 20 bartenders and 'shaker boys' busy on that one drink.
Q 21Merchant Antonio Benedetto Carpano introduced the first sweet vermouth in 1786 in which city?
Turin
Turin is where Antonio Benedetto Carpano first sold his sweet, spiced vermouth in 1786; it proved so popular, the story goes, that his shop had to stay open around the clock.
Q 22What type of alcoholic beverage is vermouth classified as?
Fortified wine
Vermouth is a fortified wine, wine strengthened with a little spirit and flavoured with herbs, so unlike the spirits on the shelf beside it an opened bottle slowly fades and belongs in the fridge.
Q 23Pimm's, a gin-based fruit cup, has had its own bar since 1971 at which tennis Grand Slam?
Wimbledon
Q 14The Clover Club cocktail takes its name from a club in which US city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia's Clover Club was an all-male circle of journalists and lawyers who met at the Bellevue hotel, yet the frothy raspberry-and-gin drink named for it came to be seen as a ladies' drink.
Q 15Which creamy vodka-and-coffee-liqueur cocktail is the Dude's drink of choice in The Big Lebowski?
White Russian
The White Russian has no known Russian roots: the name only nods to its vodka. It was fading from fashion until The Big Lebowski (1998), whose hero the Dude drinks little else and calls it a 'Caucasian'.
Q 16The Aviation cocktail gets its delicate tint and floral note from which liqueur?
Crème de Violette
Crème de Violette was in Hugo Ensslin's original 1916 recipe, but the liqueur was so hard to find that Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book simply left it out, and many bartenders followed.
Q 17Which cocktail of white rum, pineapple juice and grenadine is named after a silent-film star?
Mary Pickford
The Mary Pickford is said to have been invented in 1920s Havana in honour of the star; Basil Woon's 1928 guide to drinking in Cuba recorded it as pineapple juice, Bacardi and a dash of grenadine.
Q 18The pisco sour is claimed as a national drink by Peru and which neighbouring country?
Chile
Chile and Peru both claim the pisco sour, and the grape brandy in it; the drink is usually traced to American bartender Victor Morris, who opened Morris' Bar in Lima in 1916.
Q 19One theory links the word "cocktail" to a French word for what common item?
Eggcup
An eggcup is a coquetier in French, and one tale has New Orleans apothecary Antoine Peychaud serving brandy and bitters in one until the word was mangled into 'cocktail'; dictionaries simply say 'origin unknown'.
Q 20What do you call a dry drink served before a meal to whet the appetite?
Aperitif
An aperitif 'opens' the meal, from the Latin aperire, to open, and is usually dry rather than sweet, unlike the digestif poured after dinner.
Wimbledon opened its first Pimm's bar in 1971 and the drink has been a staple of the tournament ever since; James Pimm first served it at his oyster bar in the City of London.
Q 24A Collins, such as the gin-based Tom Collins, is a spirit, lemon juice and sugar lengthened with what carbonated mixer?
Club soda
Club soda tops the Collins; the Tom Collins is often tied to a hoax of 1874, when pranksters sent friends storming into bars to confront a 'Tom Collins' who had supposedly slandered them.
Q 25The first printed definition of a cocktail, in 1806, joked that its drinkers would 'swallow any thing else', a boon to whom?
Political candidates
Political candidates: the paper called the drink 'of great use to a democratic candidate'. Its editor, Harry Croswell, was a Federalist who had been convicted of libelling President Jefferson, with Alexander Hamilton arguing his appeal.
Q 26The sidecar combines brandy and lemon juice with which third ingredient?
Orange liqueur
Orange liqueur, usually a triple sec, completes the sidecar; Harry MacElhone's 1922 book credited the drink to London bartender Pat MacGarry, though in later editions he named himself as its inventor.
Q 27The Penicillin, an IBA official cocktail, is built on which spirit?
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is the Penicillin's base: Sam Ross created it at New York's Milk & Honey in 2005, its honey, lemon and ginger under a float of smoky Islay malt echoing a cold remedy, hence the name.
Q 28Gosling Brothers claims the dark 'n' stormy was invented just after World War I on which island?
Bermuda
Bermuda is the Dark 'n' Stormy's home: Gosling's of Hamilton says the drink was first mixed from its Black Seal rum and local ginger beer just after World War I, and it holds a trademark on the name.
Q 29The Negroni was created around 1919–20 in which Italian city?
Florence
Florence is the Negroni's birthplace: at Caffè Casoni around 1919, Count Camillo Negroni reportedly asked bartender Fosco Scarselli to swap the soda in his usual Campari-and-vermouth for gin.
Q 30In a Negroni sbagliato, or "mistaken Negroni", what replaces the gin?
Sparkling wine
Sparkling wine replaces the gin; sbagliato is Italian for 'mistaken', after the story that a bartender at Milan's Bar Basso reached for the wrong bottle while making a Negroni.