Airline Cocktails – Come Imbibe With Me!

I am not a good flyer. That, my friends, is an understatement. My coping mechanism does involve some deep breathing and I suppose there is some minor distraction from a 5-year old episode of How I Met Your Mother (assuming the video terminal is actually working), but what works the best for me is a drink or two. This is not about getting drunk by any means, it’s just calming the nerves a little bit.

My standard cocktail choices in the past have been as follows:

Early to mid-morning flight: Mr and Mrs T’s Bloody Mary Mix and Vodka, Vodka & Orange Juice

Mid-day flight: G&T, Vodka Soda

Late afternoon, early evening flight: Scotch & Water (it would be Irish Whiskey, but they rarely have that. Boo.)

Now there truly is nothing wrong with these choices (except for the Bloody Mary mix, as it is sooo not worth the calories and/or salt content) but I knew that I could do better. So, for a recent 4-hour flight  we came up with (and tried, of course) some cocktails that could be easily made using what you can find on the airplane, at the airport food court, or easily grab from home. In a future post we plan to provide cocktails for those of you that are particularly well-organized and love to dabble a bit more than the average imbiber (think homemade simple syrups, bitters, spice blends).

Before getting started, as you will soon see, for each recipe I suggest a specific amount of ice in each cup. That’s all well and good, but flight attendants have a habit of filling the cups entirely with ice so you might need to ask for an extra cup, just to be safe.

Bloody Mary

1 cup 1/3-filled with ice

50ml bottle vodka

tomato juice (1 can, or however the airline provides it)

lemon wedge

salt, pepper packets*

hot sauce packet*

soya sauce packet*

dijon mustard packet (optional)*

Pour the vodka into the cup and add tomato juice to almost fill the cup. Squeeze the wedge of lemon over the top. Add pinches of both salt and pepper, a squirt of soya sauce, a squirt of hot sauce and a tiny squirt of Dijon if you’re looking for extra zip. Stir, and add more seasonings to taste.

*From Home (or in the Airport’s Food Court): Packets of Salt, Pepper, Hot Sauce (Taco Bell will suffice in a pinch), Soya Sauce, Dijon Mustard

Tom Collins

1 cup half-filled with ice

coffee spoon/stirrer

50ml bottle of gin

2 lemon wedges

2 sugar packets

soda water (1 can, or however the airline provides it)

Stir the gin and the contents of the sugar packets in the cup until the sugar has dissolved, then squeeze both lemon wedges over top. Fill the cup to the top with soda water.

White Russian

1 cup half-filled with ice

coffee spoon/stirrer

½ 50ml bottle coffee liqueur (Kahlua) (save the rest for your post-lunch/dinner coffee later or if you’re like me, get another vodka and more creamers J)

50ml bottle vodka

2 creams/creamers (= 2 tbsp cream)

Pour coffee liqueur and vodka into the glass. Float the cream on top and stir slowly until incorporated.

We are planning on introducing a new app for Android and iOS for airline cocktails, Sky-High Spirits, so would love to hear if you have any cocktails that you like to mix up when traveling. Send us a comment with your recipe, we will give it a whirl and assuming it’s MixMentor worthy, we will add it to our app!