The Alabama Slammer, and What to Do Without Sloe Gin
We keep coming back to this one, and the reason is that it does something most sweet drinks cannot. It has four bottles in it and still tastes like a single idea.
The Alabama Slammer came out of the American South somewhere in the mid-seventies, got adopted by every college bar in the country, and then quietly outlived the trend that made it. It is not fashionable. It has never stopped being ordered.
What goes in it
Alabama Slammer — amaretto, Southern Comfort, sloe gin, orange juice, pineapple juice.
Our version runs equal parts of the three liqueurs, roughly ¾ oz each, with 2 oz orange juice and an ounce of pineapple. Shake with ice and strain into a tall glass over fresh ice.
The pineapple is the part people leave out and shouldn’t. Plenty of published versions are amaretto, SoCo, sloe gin and orange juice alone, and they are fine — but pineapple adds a rounder body that keeps the amaretto from sitting on top of everything. It also gives the drink that heavier mouthfeel that makes it feel like a proper tiki-adjacent thing rather than a shot poured long.
Grenadine at the end if you want the sunset — it is in more of our recipes than tequila is, which surprised us too. It sinks, it looks good, and it makes the drink about four percent sweeter, which it does not need but nobody has ever complained about.
Making it without sloe gin
This comes up constantly, because sloe gin is a bottle almost nobody keeps and the drink is famous enough that people want to make it anyway.
The honest answer is that sloe gin is doing something specific here — it is a sloe berry liqueur, tart and dark red, and its job is to add a plummy sourness underneath all that sweetness. Remove it and the drink becomes cloying.
What works as a replacement, in order:
Chambord or another raspberry liqueur. Closest in color and in the dark-berry register. Slightly sweeter, so pull back on the grenadine.
Cherry brandy. Common in older bar books and honestly period-correct. Less tart, more almond-adjacent, which puts it in conversation with the amaretto.
Nothing, plus lemon. The Alabama Slammer #3 drops the sloe gin entirely and uses amaretto, Southern Comfort, grenadine and lime juice. The citrus does the acid work that the sloe berries were doing. It is a different drink and it is a good one.
If you do buy a bottle, our sloe gin roundup covers what else it earns its shelf space with, because it is a more useful bottle than its reputation suggests.
The shooter version
Half the people searching for this drink want the shot, not the tall glass, and they are two different builds.
Alabama Slammer Shooter — amaretto, vodka, Southern Comfort, orange juice, grenadine. Shaken and strained into shot glasses.
The vodka replaces the sloe gin, which tells you the shot is chasing strength rather than balance. Keep the orange juice to a splash — enough to soften it, not enough to make it a drink. Chill everything. A room-temperature shooter of this is rough.
If you are making a tray of them, our shot and shooter guides have more in this register.
Two more in the file
The Alabama Slammer #2 is the stripped-down one — sloe gin, orange juice, Southern Comfort, and nothing else. Three ingredients, and it is the version we would hand somebody who has never had it, because you can taste each part.
God’s Alabama Slammer adds a lemon mix on top of the standard build, which brings the acid up and makes the whole thing considerably more drinkable in quantity. If you are batching for a crowd, start here.
Notes from the pitcher
This scales beautifully and it is one of the better party drinks we make, largely because none of the ingredients need to be fresh.
For twelve: 1½ cups each amaretto, Southern Comfort and sloe gin, 3 cups orange juice, 1½ cups pineapple juice. Stir in a pitcher, refrigerate, serve over ice. Add the grenadine per glass rather than to the batch, or it will all be pink and you lose the layering.
Southern Comfort is doing more heavy lifting than people credit — it is peach and spice on a whiskey base, and it is what stops the drink from being a fruit punch. If you want to understand that bottle better, our Southern Comfort mixer guide goes at it properly.
Fifty years on, it is still the drink we reach for when somebody says they do not like cocktails. Nobody has finished one and maintained the position.
Last modified on August 30, 2026
