A Bartender’s Guide to Spring Cocktails: 15 Spring Cocktail Ideas

As the weather gets warmer and the days grow longer, there’s ample opportunity for bars and restaurants to boost sales by capitalizing on people’s eagerness to come out of their winter cocoons. Thoughtfully crafted cocktails elevate your bar’s offerings and can get customers excited about a warmer time of year, even in places that are warm year-round.

Seasonal menus are a popular trend at bars and restaurants because they’re a proven way to keep customers engaged with your business. A spring cocktail list showcases seasonal flavors, offers a more creative experience to your customers, and demonstrates that you’ve always got something new up your sleeve if they keep coming back.

Crafting a bar menu is always a great way to show off your branding, and a seasonal menu celebrates the time of year and appeals to your customers’ current trends and tastes. To help you get started, we’ve created a list of some of the best spring cocktail recipes to consider for your menu.

Key takeaways:

• Refreshing cocktail recipes for margaritas, palomas, sangria, and more.

• How a seasonal menu can capitalize on spring events like Easter and the Kentucky Derby.

• Inspiration for concoctions using rum, whiskey, gin, tequila, and many more liquors and seasonal ingredients.

Why seasonal menus matter for bars and restaurants

Seasonal menus are a strategic tool for bars and restaurants, just like events such as trivia nights or open-mic nights. They’re a way to keep your menu versatile and exciting so that customers always have something new when they visit. It’s not changing your business’s core ethos, it just offers something a little different that may entice new customers and excite loyal ones.

Some of the key benefits of seasonal menus include:

• Capitalizing on seasonal ingredients: In the springtime, people crave citrusy, fizzy, floral flavors like grapefruit juice, pineapple juice, hibiscus, and rhubarb. Offering seasonal ingredients in cocktails is a great way to fuel your bartenders’ creativity and help customers get into the spring spirit with light, delicious cocktails that get the excitement stirring for summer.

• Engage customers online: Crafting new cocktails and showcasing them on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok is a great way to create excitement online. That marketing exposure may lead to more in-person visitors ready for a refreshing spring cocktail.

• Create urgency: A spring cocktail menu is a limited-time offer, which creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity for customers. Customers can only get these drinks for a few months of the year, so they know they’ll need to act fast. And if they really love a drink, they’ll need to come back multiple times in the spring to get it.

• Get outside: Depending on where you are, you may offer outdoor seating at certain times of the year. Announcing a special spring cocktail list in conjunction with opening your patio or deck will give customers a reason to celebrate and get together outside for the first time in months.

Just as seasons change, people’s appetites for different flavors and ingredients change, too. Most people don’t want hot chocolate in the summertime. By embracing seasonal flavors and highlighting seasonal ingredients on a temporary cocktail menu, you can capitalize on changing tastes and encourage customers to try cocktails now before the menu changes for the next season.

Now, let’s highlight 15 spring cocktail recipes that can elevate your menu this season.

Top 15 spring cocktails

Fruity mimosas

The mimosa is a delightfully flexible cocktail. The classic is with orange juice and champagne, but you can substitute prosecco, feature different juices, and experiment with different garnishes. For instance, take a page from Wakefield, MA’s Tahpas 529, which has a whole menu of mimosas. The Cringer is a real highlight.

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Ingredients:

3 oz. champagne or prosecco

3 oz. Aperol

6 oz. cranberry juice

Floral daiquiris

The strawberry daiquiri is a classic, but like mimosas, you can do a lot with a daiquiri. Before peak summer, a more floral daiquiri to ring in the spring might hit better than the fruitiest flavors.

Ingredients:

Creme de violette

Blueberries

Light white rum

Lime juice

Sugar syrup

Elderflower liquor

Hearty old fashioneds

Whiskey drinks are a year-round staple of any cocktail menu. Not everyone is going to be ready to make the leap to sweet spring cocktails, so consider a twist on the classic old fashioned, like this one from Brooklyn’s Arden 788.

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Ingredients:

Duck Fat Fort Hamilton Bourbon

Faccia Brutto Alpino

Caramelized onion

Ginger and orange syrup

Tangerine bitters

Amaro sweet

The Amaro sour is a summer cocktail hit. Ease into the season with a sweeter twist, like the Monte Killer from Wharf Fishhouse and Tiki Bar in Newport, RI.

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Ingredients:

Montenegro amaro

Planteray pineapple rum

Coconut cream

Pineapple juice

Hibiscus

Lemon bitters

Pineapple slice for garnish

Delicious Micheladas

A Mexican classic; you can do a lot with a Michelada. Feature a local beer, adjust the spice, and give it more or less tomato. It’s almost like a Mexican Bloody Mary, so don’t be afraid to have some fun with garnishes and presentation.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon kosher salt

¾ teaspoon Tajin seasoning

⅔ cup tomato juice

¼ cup lime juice

3 drops worcestershire sauce

3 drops soy sauce

3 drops hot sauce

12 ounces Mexican lager beer

Lime for garnish

Spicy margaritas

Margaritas never go out of style, but they just hit a bit different when you’re enjoying one outside on the first warm day in a while. Give it an extra kick to emulate the margarita piccante from Sociale Brooklyn.

Ingredients:

Calabrian chili-infused tequila

Aperol

fresh lime juice

Fresh sangrias

Hailing from the arid regions of Spain and Portugal, sangria is wine infused with fruit, liquor, and other flavors to make it sweeter and more refreshing. Like many of the ideas on this list, there’s a lot you can do with sangria, and it can be fun to experiment with flavors. Traditionally a social drink, considering offering volume discounts for pitchers to share among friends.

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Ingredients:

Red wine

Rum

Hibiscus

Orange

Lime

Dirty martinis

Cocktails are a chance to let your creativity flow. That’s the entire concept of Backbar, a cocktail bar in Somerville, MA. While they offer a menu, the real experience is about simply telling one of the expert mixologists what you like and letting them mix something up for you. This spring, these pros are featuring a dirty martini called Skunk Ape.

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Ingredients:

1.5 tarragon infused montelobos

.5 bamboo baiju

1 spicy pickle brine

dash pepper tincture

garnished with olive oil

Rhubarb sprigs

Before the full-blown sweetness of summer, more earthy flavors like rhubarb can be a real hit. Give this basic rhubarb sprig recipe a swing for a fizzy addition to your menu.

Ingredients:

Rhubarb vodka

Lavender syrup

Lemon juice

Soda water

Sweet Manhattans

Like an old fashioned, the Manhattan never seems to go out of style. When you’re looking for a trustworthy whiskey staple for your seasonal menu, take inspiration from The Beehive in San Francisco, which serves up classic Manhattans and a similar twist with Bénédictine liqueur, the Bobby Burns.

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Ingredients:

George Dickel 8yr Bourbon 

Fig Amaro Cha

Vermouth

Rum

Bourbon and ginger beer floats

It may sound like a flavor clash, but if you want to offer something to those with a sweet tooth, this is a great option for those bridge weeks when winter won’t yield to spring.

Ingredients:

2 scoops vanilla ice cream

2 oz. bourbon

Ginger beer filled to the top

Refreshing mint juleps

The unofficial drink of the Kentucky Derby, a mint julep is a refreshing, delicious bourbon-based cocktail. It’s a great accompaniment to heavy dining like barbecue — just ask Gus’s BBQ in Claremont, CA. Consider offering specials on Derby Day and making an event out of it.

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Ingredients:

Mint (crushed and for garnish)

Bourbon

Sugar syrup

Aromatic bitters

Tequila sunrises

Your spring cocktail menu can be further broken down into all-day and brunch drinks. If you do that, don’t forget the tequila sunrise. This option features pineapple, but you could try coconut cream, grapefruit juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, or whatever else strikes you as a bolt of inspiration.

Ingredients:

2 oz. pineapple chunks

4 thin slices jalapeño

4 oz. fresh orange juice

2 oz. tequila

1/2 oz. grenadine

Classic Moscow mules

A Moscow mule may feel like more of a winter drink, especially given the hearty, warming look of the classic copper mug, but don’t overlook this drink’s popularity. People love a mule, and they’ll enjoy it year-round. Spring is a great opportunity to give it a creative, sweeter twist.

Ingredients:

2 oz. vodka

1/2 oz. fresh lime juice

1/4 oz. Simple Syrup

4 oz. ginger beer

1 fresh mint sprig for garnish

Tropical gimlets

Gimlets are simple, balanced, gin-based cocktails that you can spice up or down depending on the season. In the springtime, try this grapefruit and sage option.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 oz. gin

1 oz. grapefruit juice

Dash of sage simple syrup

1 grapefruit slice

1 fresh sage leaf

How to market a new spring cocktail menu

You’ve found the inspiration, crafted the menu, and are ready to start pouring. But there’s a crucial step you have to take now. 

You need to market your new menu effectively so that people know it exists! All that work building the menu will go to waste if you don’t get new customers and boost sales. Some of the best ways to market a new menu include:

• Update your website: Make your new cocktail menu a prominent feature of your business website. A simple line on your homepage announcing the new menu and providing a link is a great way to raise awareness to existing customers and entice people curious about your spot.

• Post on social media: 59% of Toast survey respondents use Facebook to discover new restaurants, and 84% prefer to see photos of food and drinks on a restaurant’s social media page. Post images and share deals and event information on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to raise awareness and excitement about your seasonal menu. Encourage customers to do the same when they’re enjoying their experience.

• Work with local influencers: Everybody’s a critic, but local food and drink influencers could actually make a real difference for your bottom line. Invite popular local influencers for a complimentary tasting of your new menu in exchange for social media posts to help you tap into new audiences.

• Host seasonal events: As we mentioned earlier, a great way to launch your spring menu is with a special event opening your outdoor space for the season or as part of an Easter-themed happy hour. Offer exclusive deals to incentivize customers to try new cocktails and create word-of-mouth advertising.

• Offer promotions: Your spring cocktail menu will only be around for a limited time, but you can create additional urgency by offering drink specials at certain times of day or days of the week. Highlighting a special “cocktail of the week” from your seasonal menu can help you work through a surplus of ingredients and incentivize customers to buy off the menu.

• Design a spring-themed menu: Graphics and detailed descriptions are great examples of menu engineering, a tactic that can increase interest and engagement with the menu. Make sure you highlight seasonal flavors and ingredients like orange juice, grenadine, and hibiscus.

• Use email marketing: Collecting customer emails will allow you to target your most loyal customers with special deals on your new seasonal menu. Include photos of the cocktails, descriptions, and offer special discounts or exclusive access to events for loyal email subscribers.

Creating a spring menu is a great way to play into the excitement of a warmer, sunnier season. But you can’t fully capitalize on that spirit of renewal without a marketing strategy that builds awareness of your new seasonal offerings.

Seasonal menu loading…

Spring brings about major changes in the weather and in people’s moods, and savvy restaurants can capitalize on sunnier days with an exciting spring cocktail menu. But don’t reserve the seasonal menu for only spring! There are great opportunities to craft fall cocktails, winter cocktails, and summer ones, too. You could even take advantage of health trends by offering mocktails.

For more tips on marketing your seasonal cocktail menu, check out our Restaurant Marketing Guide.