The Eight Best Cocktail Garnishes and How To Use Them

As the name implies, cocktail garnishes are decorative ornaments that infuse flavour and character into a mixed drink. Cocktail garnishes can be simple or elaborate, edible or inedible, large or small, dropped into drinks or perhaps discarded altogether. They can be decorative or embellishing. 

A cocktail's presentation might not seem important at first glance, but it is an integral part of the drinking experience. Garnishes can enhance the visual appeal, aromas, and subtle flavours of cocktails, all of which can impact the finished drink. These small components can make a big difference.

As you can imagine, there are tons of fancy garnishes to choose from, and you can have a lot of fun arranging them on your cocktail. We hope this article about the eight best cocktail garnishes will inspire you to take your cocktail game up a notch.

Dehydrated fruits

Dehydrated fruits can save time and money. Dehydrated fruits are already sliced and ready for garnishing, unlike fresh ingredients. The preparation time can be significantly reduced when using readily available dehydrated fruits to garnish your cocktails, especially when making multiple servings.

When stored properly, dehydrated fruits have a much longer shelf life than fresh ones. Additionally, fresh garnishes like citrus wheels go bad very quickly. In this way, wasteful ingredients can be avoided.

Although you can dehydrate nearly any fruit, lemons, oranges, pineapples, limes, mangoes, and berries are the most common fruits dried for cocktail garnishes. Any cocktail looks sophisticated when adorned with dehydrated fruits.

You can dehydrate fruit with just an oven, a microwave or a food dehydrator. For more on this, we recommend reading our article on how to dehydrate fruits and vegetables.  

Edible flowers 

Flowers delight our senses in many ways, not only because they are beautiful. Edible flowers, as cocktail garnishes, add a lovely splash of colour to cocktails. Adding flowers to the cocktail will make the experience even more delightful.

Some good choices of edible flowers are lavender, violas, roses, nasturtiums and orchids. However, you must remember that not all flowers are appropriate for a cocktail garnish. For example, certain flowers are poisonous. So, please take caution. Make sure to do your research well before eating certain flowers.

Cocktail onions

A perfect cocktail onion must be crisp and carry a hint of other flavours beyond just the usual piquant onion. Cocktail onions, being small, are usually sweeter – small pearl onions are ideal. Due to their inherent sweetness, pearl onions pair well with many drinks. Fresh pearl onions are just as good for cocktails as frozen ones, but if you can find them, you're better off using fresh ones - their taste is fresher and crunchier. Cocktails can also be garnished with brined onions. Because brined onions keep a slightly crisp texture, they give cocktails a unique flavour. 

Cocktail onions are used in the Gibson cocktail, a Martini with a cocktail onion instead of the traditional olive garnish.

Orange peel

An orange peel is the rind of an orange fruit, which contains subtle oils that enhance the flavour of cocktails. Among the most popular cocktail garnishes are orange peels. They are used in cocktails like the Negroni, sidecar, and old fashioned.

Preparing an orange peel as a garnish for a cocktail is pretty straightforward. Cut an orange peel coin approximately 2 inches long and 1 inch wide using a paring knife. Cut into the fruit's pith just a bit. Drop the peel into the drink after rubbing it around the rim of the glass.

Citrus twist

Citrus twists are elegant, delicate garnishes made by twisting a thin strip of citrus peel. An orange or lemon twist is usually used to finish off the cocktail, but a lime twist is also an excellent addition. Except for the peel, the fruit remains whole and can be juiced without losing nutrients. 

There is no doubt that citrus twist garnish is one of the most difficult to make, and the best advice is to practice the technique until you have perfected it. The following step-by-step instructions will help you learn how to make a perfect citrus twist.

Place a citrus fruit in the palm of your hand and hold it firmly. Cut the citrus peel with a canelle knife, digging deep enough to grab a bit of the white pith. With a smooth, constant motion, roll the fruit in your hand and cut a strip of peel from the fruit as you roll it. Once you have reached the desired length, stop or wait until the peel naturally falls off. Spiralise the peel as tightly as you can without breaking it, then squeeze it gently. Drop your twists into ice water immediately after creating the spiral to keep them tighter and more pliable. Immediately before garnishing the drink, roll it into a tight spiral again. 

Cocktail cherries

There are many cocktail cherries, and they vary based on their type, preservation method, and whether or not they are spiked with a liquor-like brandy. Maraschino cherries were initially fresh cherries marinated in maraschino liqueur, and such cherries are still made and available from producers such as Luxardo. Luxardo cherries were the first cocktail cherries invented in 1905. These cherries are preserved in cherry syrup and are small, dark red – so dark red they almost look black. Their taste is so powerful and complex; they're rich, sweet-tart, and fruity, with a nutty amaretto-like finish. The bright red commercial maraschino cherries –  the kind you’ll see in a Shirley Temple –  are an American knockoff of the original Luxardo cherries.

Cocktails such as Old Fashioned or the classic Manhattan offer an excellent occasion to use Luxardo cherries to garnish them. 

Luxardo and maraschino cherries should be refrigerated and left in syrup/liqueur.

Olives

Many different cocktail recipes require you to add a garnish of olives. The dirty martini and the Manhattan are the most popular cocktails to serve with an olive. Olives will remove dirty martini's dryness and add a slight tang instead. The Manhattan is the perfect cocktail if you prefer whiskey to light spirits. 

For the sake of ease and the fact that it’s the most common habitat for an olive in a cocktail, we’re just going to be talking about olives in dirty martinis.

There are different degrees of ‘dirtiness’ your martini can be; a dirty martini can be from a little bit dirty to filthy. A ‘little bit dirty’ means adding an olive to a martini straight from the jar without rinsing the brine off it. On the opposite, filthy is anything more than four teaspoons of brine.

The guidelines on how to use olives as a garnish are pretty simple: use whole olives – pitted olives will infuse straight into the drink due to the massive hole in the middle. Don’t impale olives on a cocktail stick. Olives should be refrigerated and left in the jar in which they were packaged.

Fresh herbs

Fresh herbs, such as mint, rosemary, thyme or lavender, give a mixed drink flavour and aroma. Herb leaves also lend visual interest to a cocktail. In other cases, the herbs and leaves are purely decorative and serve only to inform the drinker of a characteristic taste. One of the most popular herbs for garnishing is mint. Adding mint as a garnish enhances the taste of drinks by adding a crisp freshness.

You should slap the fresh herb garnish against your hand before placing it on the cocktail to release essential oils and enhance the flavour.