How to Make a Grasshopper, the Chocolate and Mint Cocktail That Doubles as Dessert
When’s the last time you had a Grasshopper? When’s the last time anyone had a Grasshopper? And Wisconsinites—you can put your hands down; we’ll get to you soon enough.
The Grasshopper sits in a peculiar place in the culture. It’s a cocktail everyone knows, with flavors everyone loves, and yet no one drinks it. There are and were bars in New Orleans and Portland and across the state of Wisconsin specialize in the Grasshopper—indeed, who report it being among their top sellers, and a delight to everyone who receives it—and yet unless you happen to frequent those particular establishments, you are, in 2024, more likely to eat the Grasshopper as a pie than drink it as a cocktail. And the reason this is peculiar is that the Grasshopper is a combination of chocolate, mint, and cream. As hard as it might be to find someone who’s had one in the last 12 months, it’s even harder to find anyone at all who’d argue that those aren’t one of the best combinations of flavors in the history of the natural world.
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The problem, as you already know, is the sweetness, and the culture of dessert drinks more broadly. Even people who will speak with medical authority about there being a second stomach for dessert won’t even entertain a sweet drink, as if being liquid dessert is not what that’s for. This is misguided, but in their defense, the story of the Grasshopper is the story of people wrestling with that sweetness for more than 100 years.
The first Grasshopper anyone’s ever heard of shows up in 1908, in William “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s The World’s Drinks, and How to Mix Them, who himself credits it to “Harry O’Brien, late of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco.” As an origin story, this would be fairly cut-and-dry, save for the fact that Boothby’s Grasshopper was not only absurdly sweet but frankly among the dumbest possible ways to make the drink: A shot of creme de cacao carefully poured over a shot of creme de menthe, and served as an unmixed layered shot, just two liqueurs, at room temperature, with no cream.
That’s not a cocktail—that’s really, not even palatable—and so it’s no wonder that the Grasshopper’s popularly accepted origin story ignores this entirely and credits the invention to Philip Guichet, who, it’s said, created the Grasshopper for a New York cocktail competition in 1918. Whether or not Guichet was familiar with Boothby’s version is immaterial; he had the bright ideas of adding cream as a direly needed sweetness-absorber and shaking it all on ice, and pleased with it, he brought it back to his restaurant, Tujague’s in New Orleans, where you can still order one today.
The Grasshopper endures. It enjoyed wider popularity in the Midwest in the 1950s and ‘60s and saw mass adoption in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and remains now as a delicious throwback, one that is always ready to get tossed on a menu, which guests will ironically order but sincerely enjoy. As for the sweetness, it’s hard not to notice that almost every bar that puts it on a menu changes the original recipe in some way. In Wisconsin, where the state’s proud supper club culture has kept the Grasshopper very much alive, it is blended with vanilla ice cream, creating, essentially, a mint chocolate milkshake à la minute. Still others buck up the recipe with spirits—so many bartenders have reflexively added vodka that many mistakenly believe that vodka is part of the original recipe. Tujague’s themselves add a spike of brandy. Others, like Jeffrey Morgenthaler at the now-shuttered Pepe le Moko, add Fernet Branca for personality. The more spirits you add, the less sweet it becomes—it would be simple to make a Grasshopper so strong it could make your grandfather cough—it just depends on the heaviness of your hand.
However, you do it (and we have our favorite, below) the Grasshopper is the drink you deserve. It’s perfect for Halloween, as it’s the color of Frankenstein’s monster and essentially candy for grown-ups. It’s mint chocolate chip ice cream with a kick. It’s what they’re drinking at the Monster Mash. What are you going to do, tell me that you don’t want mint with chocolate and cream? You don’t think that sounds good right now? Please. It’s already what you want to drink, so you should drink one.
Grasshopper
0.5 oz. VSOP or XO Cognac
0.75 oz. green creme de menthe
0.75 oz. white creme de cacao
0.15 oz. (1 teaspoon) Fernet Branca, optional
1 oz. cream
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain up into a coupe or cocktail glass, and garnish with shaved dark chocolate or, if you have one, a lightly grated mint chocolate cookie.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS
Cognac: Tujague’s has it right. Vodka just thins the whole thing and makes it weirdly both hot and sweet, but Cognac is the move, leveraging the spirit’s natural affinity for both creme de menthe (see: The Stinger) and cream/chocolate (see: Brandy Alexander). It softens the sweetness and adds charm to an already charming drink, while making the whole project more adult. For my Grasshoppers, I insist on it. As for styles, you want something to bring richness, so VSOP Cognac or older.
Green Creme de Menthe: It is important that the cocktail be green, so you need green creme de menthe. This is regrettable only insofar as the really high-quality creme de menthes (Tempus Fugit, Giffard) don’t come in green. Various people find various ways around this: Some split the base half green half white, some add green food-coloring to white (I’ve done this, start with just a few drops, it’s very strong) and some just say to hell with it and use the best green creme de menthe they can find, which to me is made by Bols.
Creme de Cacao: White (clear) creme de cacao is a distillation of the flavors, while dark creme de cacao is a distillation and an infusion and is therefore deeper. Honestly you can use whatever you want, the cocktail will be good regardless, though the color will be better if you use white. Grab a bottle of Giffard, Marie Brizard, or Bols. Generally, in cases like this, bottle design and alcohol content (20 percent and up) are good indicators of quality—try not to buy something you’d be embarrassed to be seen pouring from.
Cream: The richer the cream, the less you’ll need to balance. With whipping cream I’d do 0.75 or 1 oz., with half and half you could go up to 1.5 oz. and extrapolate from there. Feel free to use your favorite unsweetened milk alternative (oat, hazelnut, whatever), just know the relative lack of fat content may necessitate more of it.
Fernet Branca: Fernet, even at 1 tsp, is such a game changer that I keep it optional in the recipe, though I personally adore it. The effect of the Fernet is to take all the cooling mint points and sharpen them into little knives, adding what is for me a very welcome edge. It’s not necessary—it takes an effusively friendly drink and hardens it, which may not be the right tone for your specific application—but it’s so cool and interesting and ultimately delicious I had to offer it. Use a light touch here, the Fernet has a catalyzing effect on the flavor, and you really don’t need much of it.
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