8 Best Summer Cocktails For A Long, Lazy Afternoon in the Sun

Summer brings seemingly endless, sun-drenched days. Whether spending free hours out on a boat, at the beach, or relaxing in the backyard, warm-weather entertaining calls for drinks that hit the sweet spot between refreshing and boozy.

Getting the most out of seasonal drinking comes down to a simple formula: mixing, shaking, and sipping cocktails built on light spirits, fresh citrus, and crisp, balanced flavours.

What Flavours Work for Summer Cocktails?

Personal taste dictates what goes into a glass, but heavy, bourbon-driven cocktails rarely suit peak summer heat. Warm-weather drinking relies on lighter spirits like vodka, white rum, and blanco tequila to keep things crisp and approachable. When darker spirits like whisky, dark rum, or cognac do feature, they are typically balanced by bright, refreshing notes.

Freshly squeezed citrus juices – lime, grapefruit, lemon, and orange – form the backbone of these recipes, while seasonal produce adds natural sweetness and depth. Incorporating ingredients like cucumber, mint, passionfruit, mango, and berries ensures a drink that is vibrant, balanced, and built for warm afternoons.

8 Best Summer Cocktails

From revived classics to beachside staples, these essential summer cocktails deserve a spot in any warm-weather repertoire. Each entry below features a brief history, a breakdown of key ingredients, and step-by-step instructions to help elevate home bartending skills all season long.

1. Negroni

The bittersweet Negroni is more than 100 years old. Made with gin, sweet red vermouth, and Campari, this drink was first created in 1919 at Caffè Casoni in Florence, Italy. Count Camillo Negroni visited the bar and asked bartender Fosco Scarselli to make his Americano with gin instead of soda water. The result was the drink we know now as the Negroni.

Ingredients:

• 30ml London dry gin
• 30ml Campari
• 30ml sweet red vermouth
• Orange peel

How to make a Negroni:

1. In a mixing glass, add ice cubes.
2. Pour in the London dry gin, Campari, and sweet red vermouth.
3. Stir gently to combine and chill.
4. Strain the ingredients into an ice-filled rocks glass.
5. Express the oils of an orange peel before dropping it into the drink.

2. Daiquiri

Few cocktails taste more like a summer afternoon than a well-made, fresh, citrus-driven Daiquiri. And I’m not talking about the frozen version that you whip up in a blender. This drink of white rum, fresh lime juice, and simple syrup was created in  1898 by an American-born mining engineer named Jennings Stockton Cox, who was living in the Cuban town of Daiquirí. When he ran out of gin, he decided to make a drink featuring sugar, lime juice, and locally made rum.

Ingredients:

• 60ml white rum
• 30ml fresh-squeezed lime juice
• 20ml simple syrup
• Lime wheel garnish

How to make a Daiquiri:

1. In an ice-filled shaker, add the white rum, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and simple syrup.
2. Shake vigorously to combine and chill.
3. Double-strain into a chilled coupe glass.
4. Garnish with a lime wheel.

3. Margarita

In the hierarchy of summer cocktails, it’s difficult to beat the appeal of a well-made Margarita. The classic drink is made with blanco tequila, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and triple sec. Like many famous cocktails, the Margarita has a murky, mysterious history. While a handful of origin stories exist, the most widely believed one takes us to the border town of Juárez, Mexico, in the early 1940s. Bartender Francisco “Pancho” Morales purportedly created the drink at a bar called Tommy’s Place.

Ingredients:

• 60 ml blanco tequila
• 30ml fresh-squeezed lime juice
• 30 ml triple sec or orange liqueur
• Coarse salt for rim
• Lime wheel garnish

How to make a Margarita:

1. Rub a lime wedge around the rim of a Margarita or rocks glass, then dip it into coarse salt to coat.
2. In an ice-filled shaker, pour in the blanco tequila, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and triple sec or orange liqueur.
3. Shake vigorously to combine and chill.
4. Strain into the glass you already prepared.
5. Garnish with a lime wheel.

4. Aperol Spritz

Few golden-hour aperitivo are more popular than the timeless Aperol Spritz. The spritz dates back to the 1800s, when Austrian soldiers in the Lombardo-Veneto region added water to local wines to make them more palatable. The most famous version, the Aperol Spritz, a combination of Aperol, Prosecco, and soda, wasn’t created until the 1950s, when it became the go-to before-dinner drink in Italy.

Ingredients:

• 60ml Aperol
• 90 ml prosecco
• Soda topper
• Orange slice garnish

How to make an Aperol Spritz:

1. Add ice to a large wine glass.
2. Pour in the prosecco and Aperol.
3. Top with soda water. Gently stir to combine and chill.
4. Garnish with an orange slice.

5. Gin & Tonic

The Gin & Tonic might be the perfect summer cocktail. It’s simple, refreshing, and perfectly balanced with gin, tonic water, and a lime wedge garnish. No one person gets credit for its creation. British soldiers in colonial India first created it in the 1800s. They were given quinine to combat malaria. To make the bitter powder more palatable, they mixed it with water, sugar, lime, and eventually the daily gin ration. What started as a medicinal cocktail has become one of the most popular summer drinks of all time.

Ingredients:

• 50ml London dry gin
• Tonic water topper
• Lime wedge garnish

How to make a Gin & Tonic:

1. In an ice-filled Collins or Highball glass, add gin, squeeze a lime wedge into it, and drop it in.
2. Top with tonic water.
3. Gently stir to combine and chill.

6. Mojito

Few drinks have a more mysterious history than the Mojito. Some stories even involve Sir Francis Drake. While there’s no official creator, it’s believed that the earliest version of this drink, consisting of white rum, fresh lime juice, sugar, soda water, and mint leaves, was invented at some point in the 1500s as a medicinal drink. While we don’t know the drink’s true origins, we know it’s a refreshing, summery drink with a permanent spot in our seasonal repertoire.

Ingredients:

• 45ml white rum
• 20ml fresh-squeezed lime juice
• 20ml simple syrup
• 6-7 mint leaves
• Soda water topper
• Lime wheel garnish

How to make a Mojito:

1. In a Collins or Highball glass, add mint leaves, simple syrup, and fresh-squeezed lime juice.
2. Gently muddle together to release flavours.
3. Add ice to the glass and pour in the white rum.
4. Top with soda water. Gently stir to combine and chill.
5. Garnish with a lime wheel.

7. Paloma

While the Margarita gets all the love when it comes to tequila-based cocktails, you definitely shouldn’t sleep on the grapefruit-centric Paloma in the summer. As popular as this drink is, there’s no clear-cut answer as to who created it. This drink, consisting of blanco tequila, fresh-squeezed lime juice, salt, and grapefruit soda, was invented at some point in the 1950s. This was when Squirt Grapefruit soda was first exported to Mexico, where it was inevitably used to make cocktails.

Ingredients:

• 50 ml blanco tequila
• 10ml fresh-squeezed lime juice
• A pinch of salt
• Grapefruit soda topper
• Grapefruit wedge garnish

How to make a Paloma:

1. Add ice to a Collins or Highball glass.
2. Pour in the blanco tequila, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and a pinch of salt.
3. Top with grapefruit soda. Stir gently to combine.
4. Garnish with a grapefruit wedge.

8. Whisky Highball

While we tend to stick to lighter spirits in the summer, there’s a case to be made that the Whisky Highball may be the best warm-weather cocktail. While there are a variety of origin stories, the most widely believed claim takes us to New York City’s Ashland House in the 1890s. A bartender named Patrick Duff is believed to have made a Scotch Whisky Highball for actor E.J. Ratcliffe after he requested a whisky and soda. And while it wasn’t created in Japan, there’s no disputing that the drink’s popularity in the 1950s in the country helped make it a classic to this day. What’s better than whisky and sparkling water on a hot day?

Ingredients:

• 60ml whisky (usually Scotch whisky)
• Soda or sparkling water topper
• Lemon wedge garnish

How to make a Whisky Highball:

1. Add ice to a Highball or Collins glass.
2. Pour in the whisky.
3. Top with soda water or your preferred sparkling water. Stir gently to combine and chill.
4. Squeeze the lemon wedge into the drink and drop it in.

Summer Cocktail FAQs