:: fred's picks for the top cocktails of 2025 ::

At the end of 2010, someone asked what my favorite drink of the year was, and I lacked an answer at first for there were so many good options to chose from. My choices were influenced by two factors – tastiness and uniqueness; it had to be both memorable and worth repeating. In past years, I did one post for drinks that I had out at bars and one post for drinks that I had at home; however, as I found myself going out less due to my work schedule and other factors, I cut it down to one post back in 2018. Each month here was selected for when the drink post appeared and not when it was enjoyed (unlike my real time Instagram account, I have a two week delay here before it goes live to give myself an ample window to write). Without further ado, here is the sixteenth annual installment of my best drinks for the year with a pair of runner ups.

January: The month with its cold, blustery winds was matched by a lot of stirred instead of citrusy cocktails. It was tough to pick a top drink, but I gave the award to Elayne Duff's Bienvenidos, an agave bitter-banana number from the updated The Tequila Ambassador from Wonk Press. Given the nod for second and third was Rosewater in Houston's Road to Ruin, a big, burly, and bitter number that came with an intriguing warning that was close to the top spot, and the Fireside Chat that was a maple-tinged Old Fashioned with the 1910's mezcal-Cognac base from Clyde's in Alexandria, Virginia.

February: The top choice for February went to the most gentle Malört drink I had all year with a solid ounce and a half – namely, the Wake Up Call at Shame & Regret in Colorado Springs. Bronze and silver in no particular order are the bitter Mane of Needles by Jason O'Bryan at URBN in San Diego as a Boulevardier riff on The Violet Hour's Autumn Negroni, and the Sidewinder, an apple-maple take on the Rattlesnake – the rye-sugar egg white Sour from The Savoy Cocktail Book. March: For March, a rather elegant Martini riff that spun in touches of Jamaican rum and banana liqueur, the Portorico from the 1000 Misture book from 1936, was a favorite, and I enjoyed serving it to my regulars who went off-menu with dealer's choice at the C-Side Bar. Honorable mention to Backbar's Right Paw of Destiny as a sherry and Montenegro twist on the neo-classic Right Hand, and to Butcher Chef's Patty O'Cann as a Scotch-Irish whiskey mashup of a Preakness and a Little Italy.

April: The Mohu as a Scotch-Bourbon Creole variation of sorts from the private members-only club The Poodle Room in Las Vegas caught my attention for the month. Urban Grub's dual amari Black Manhattan, the Spaghetti Western and Butcher Chef's apple-tinged Prospector Cocktail-style drink, the Forbidden Forest, were solid sippers too. May: I really enjoyed the Anyone's Shadow from Portland's Rum Club so much that it inspired me to riff on it with the Souls of the Mountain a few days later. May is also the month when my mint patch returns, so second tier mention went to Craig Herman's cribbage-Tiki (And) Knobs is Thirteen redux of the Ward 8, and also tropical but not citrussy with Brian Maxwell's Right Hand riff, Save the Last Dance.

June: I'll call June a draw with one shaken: an apple brandy-rum Swedish punch number called the Lost Generation at Bygone in Baltimore, and one stirred: a bitter fruity tequila drink dubbed Isla Bonita at Good Company in St. Louis. July: July was a winner of tropical-tiki month with top pick to Raine's Law Room's Bright Side as a banana-Armagnac Rye-Tai. Also delicious were Erick Castro's tequila-based Tiger's Claw at Gilly's and the complex Mistah Bittah Hai by Jacoby Morciglio at Adrift Tiki Bar in Denver.

August: August was a rather tough month to choose with a lot of tropical winners (as well as a few stirred ones as well). However, the Samson Swizzle by Samson Miller at the Zombie Village took the Queen's Park Swizzle into the tiki waters got my attention. Close second and third (in no order) were one of the many Coco Lopez drinks that I made, the Barrio Tropical at Good Company in St. Louis (the Piña Verde might have gotten the mention but it is already well known and Green Chartreuse is too difficult to source right now to promote an ounce and a half at a time), and a Meaghan Dorman's Averna for curaçao Mai Tai riff called Across the Pacific. September: The simple elegance of the Mexico Navy by Jordan Valls at Palomar in Portland read like a ginger Infante gets top merits for September; a few weeks later in October, I had a chance to get a drink from Jordan at Palomar during Portland Cocktail Week. A cool coffee-chile liqueur Coco Lopez number, the Aztec Warrior by Chad Austin in his Pandemic-era Everyone Has a F*cking Cocktail Book, and a great nightcap called the Essenza Vintage at Jacksonville's Cataluna were definitely notable.

October: The most memorable drink of the month was at a Ford's Gin-sponsored seminar at Portland Cocktail Week where they served a 3 Martini Lunch; riffing on my favorite Martini riff, the Tuxedo #2, to yield the Velvet Tuxedo No. 2 with the added fruit complexity and richness of sloe gin was a winner. Tavolota's bitter-tropical tequila Golden Eagle and the over-the-top Death Daiquiri with pineapple syrup from Rosewater in Houston need pointing out too. November: I may have been skewed by the fact that the Elected Official was created by my Instagram friend Tim Kirkland as a tribute drink inspired by my style, but it was an complex sipper with a split base, two modifiers, and bitters. November did keep tropical going with Lost Lake's No Bye/No Aloha that seemed like a Saturn gussied up in a variety of ways, and also worth mentioning was La Factoria in Puerto Rico's Hijos de Borinquen as a complex Daiquiri of sorts that fell between the Cuban Anole and the Periodista.

December: Another Saturn-inspired recipe caught my attention to place first for December with the Beyond the Solar System with rye whiskey, cinnamon, and an apple garnish to mix things up. Nick Mallia's Day For Night as a cucumber riff on the White Negroni at Bar Lunette and the Buffalo Soldier at Nineteen at TPC Sawgrass in Florida as a tequila-Bourbon Old Fashioned played good supporting roles for the month.

Some of my favorite creations not mentioned in yesterday's year end round-up: There were some drinks that I did not mention in my other roundup that got attention on Instagram including my Lion's Tail taken through a New England lens called the Bobcat's Tail, my Overpowered by Funk that I crafted for The Clash cocktail biopic, the Montebank as a Scotch-apple-amaro number, and my St. Mark's Street tribute of Save the Robots. It was great seeing other people in my feed taking the time to give my recipes a try this year! And below is a photo of my Doctor Yah-Yah as a Drink of Laughter and Forgetting meets a Nui-Nui. 2025 was definitely a great year for cocktails even if the trend of not going out on the town as much is still a thing for me. My job last year did not provide a lot of spare spending cash, and many of the bars in town are still making drinks too complicated to write up (still a hold over from the Pandemic as folks are wanting something they cannot make at their elevated home bars). Overall, I was able to narrow down the 12 months into 35 recipes that ranged from bitter stirred drinks to garnished up tropical ones, and that is around the top ten percent of posts on here for the year. Best wishes for 2026 both in your glass and in your life. Cheers!

the missing

1 1/2 oz Mezcal (Peloton de la Muerte)
1/2 oz Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur
1 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
1/2 oz Falernum (Velvet)

Shake with ice, strain into an old fashioned glass with ice, and garnish with a grapefruit twist. Two Thursdays ago, I was still thinking of the Mai-Kai's Last Rites that I had the night before. Hearing "Last Rites" made me think of the 1988 Ministry song "The Missing" that has those as the lyrics, and I took the trio of citrus plus modifiers and was inspired to replace the rums with something appropriate for my new job at Gato Exotico. Indeed, I ended up using the 3:1 mezcal to Ancho Reyes ratio found in the Ancho Noir and Aztec Warrior. When served over a large ice cube instead of the Last Rite's crushed ice, The Missing gave forth grapefruit, vegetal, and smoke aromas. Next, lime, roast, and passion fruit notes escaped into smoky agave, pepper spice, tropical, and clove flavors on the swallow.