The swizzle is a style of drink defined not by its particular ingredients but instead by the technique used to make it, in which the drink’s components are whisked together with crushed ice using a swizzle stick, resulting in a perfectly aerated, chilled, and diluted cocktail. Those components include spirits, of course (rum and gin traditionally being the most common), a sweetener—either sugar syrup or falernum—and bitters, sometimes with the addition of lime juice. See falernum.
The history of the swizzle stick stems back to the 1600s in the West Indies when a small branch was used to stir a molasses and water drink known as a “Switchel.” By the late 1800s, along with the newfound presence of ice in the Caribbean, there are print references to cocktails being “frothed” or “frisked into effervescence” by putting a stick into the glass and rubbing it between one’s palms, which “imparts to it a rotary motion, constantly increasing, until the foam produced by the whirling twigs reaches the top of the tall glass.” One traveler in Trinidad in the late 1800s specifically chronicled a cocktail being “stirred briskly with a swizzle-stick, rubbed rapidly between the hands.” See
To properly swizzle a drink, add the ingredients to a tall glass you will be serving in, such as a Collins, and fill the glass about three-quarters full with crushed ice. Take the swizzle stick and push the end toward the bottom of the glass, and place the handle between the palms of your hands. Briskly roll the handle between your palms, rotating the end in the drink while raising the stick up and down the length of the glass. Continue until the outside of the glass is well frosted, then top with additional crushed ice.
Two of the most famous historic swizzles are the Queen’s Park Swizzle and the Green Swizzle, both of which originate in Trinidad and prominently feature rum and Angostura bitters. Trader Vic wrote, “Most true Swizzles, because of their origin, call for rum, but nearly all punches can be swizzled,” a sentiment that is backed up by many a recipe for gin and whisky swizzles.
See also swizzle; swizzle stick; Queen’s Park Swizzle; Green Swizzle; and Angostura bitters.
Bergeron, Vic. Trader Vic’s Bartender’s Guide. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1947.
“Something in Regard to the Ordinary Citizen’s Liking for Bitter Waters.” New York Morning Telegraph, March 26, 1901, 6.
Winder, Lise, ed. Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago: On Historical Principles. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.
Wondrich, David. Imbibe!, 2nd ed. New York: Perigee, 2015.
By: Martin Cate