3 Cocktail Trends to Look Out for in 2017
Like fashion and food, the landscape of cocktails is largely predicted by popular trends. Thanks to the resurgence of tiki drinks like the Jungle Bird, refined disco sips like the Harvey Wallbanger, and concoctions that questioned everything you thought you knew about a particular spirit (hello, Sherry cocktails!), 2016 was a fun time for liquor lovers. But with a new year comes new trends and new techniques.
Here are three things to look out for in 2017.
Latin American and Caribbean Influences For decades, tequila was the only native spirit served outside the borders of Mexico. That is, until a few years ago. Thanks to the introduction of mezcal, bartenders and consumers have been eager to get their hands on more obscure Mexican spirits like bacanora and sotol.
South American and Caribbean influences will also make their way into drinks, with spices such as chili powder, Jamaican jerk, and smoked paprika popping up in unique and savory creations.
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Cocktails Made with Fermented Beverages** Gone are the days of saccharine sodas and sugar-laden juices. Instead, the use of fermented beverages — a trend that gained serious steam around this time — only grew more popular. Drinks with ingredients like kombucha, cultured tea, and coconut kefir became staples.
On top of being delicious, fermented food and drinks are full of enzymes, vitamins, and probiotics that do wonders for your health. You can also expect more health-conscious cocktails in general — drinks made with everything from leafy greens to chia seeds to activated charcoal. (Yes, that’s a thing people consume.)
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Mood and Personality-Based Cocktails** Perhaps the weirdest yet most interesting trend to emerge? Cocktails based on your personality and emotions. The traditional menu gave way as bars around the world began forgoing names of cocktails in favor of moods.
Order up a red drink to stimulate confidence or black for discipline. Some bars are using scents such as cut grass and smoked pine to evoke nostalgic feelings of certain times of the year. Others, like Trick Dog in San Francisco, haven’t used typical cocktail names in years, instead creating menus based on record albums, astrological signs, conspiracy theories, and even Pantone color swatches.
Looking back, these trends proved to be remarkably prescient about where cocktail culture was heading.
Enough trend-watching. Search by what you’ve got at Cocktail Builder and make something tonight.
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Last modified on May 28, 2026
