What Should You Call Your Custom Cocktail? Naming a Custom Cocktail

  • Naming Strategies
    • Keep Things Simple
    • Apply a Historical Reference
    • Drawing from Personal Experience
    • Movie-Inspired Names
    • Literature and Narrative References

Examples of Signature Cocktail Names

  • Clever and Playful Names
    • Funny & Punny Signature Drink Names
    • Drink Outside the Box

How to Find the Perfect Name for Your Cocktail

Even if that recipe closely mirrors an old-fashioned or any other cocktail, you want a signature drink name. These ideas will get your wheels turning.

Funny Cocktail Names and How to Make Them

  1. Mind Eraser

To make this drink, you will need…

Tips for Naming Your Signature Wedding Cocktail

  • Consult With Your Bartender
  • Schedule a Cocktail Tasting
  • Use a Clever Pun
  • Incorporate Wedding Words
  • Take Your Guests on a Trip
  • Use Your Wedding Location
  • Be Playful, but Not Too Playful

How do you Name a Cocktail?

First, and most importantly, you have to look cool drinking your drink.

There are many reasons why a mixologist chooses a specific name for the cocktails they create. To give you inspiration and spark your creativity, here are some common approaches to cocktail names.

She has been writing extensively about spirits, cocktails, bars, and cocktail gardening in more recent years.

How to Name a Cocktail Infographic

As bartenders and mixologists toil away behind their bars, they occasionally create inspiring cocktails that they want to share with the masses. After creation, the first thing that needs to be done is to provide the mixture with an etymological designation (i.e. create a drink name). If the drink is truly unique, then picking a name is a trivial matter. If the drink is a variation on an existing cocktail, then it gets a little tricky.


The origins of the word "cocktail" are lost to history, but the first definition we find in print comes from an 1806 newspaper from upstate New York. A cocktail is called "a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters…"

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