Godiva Chocolate Liqueur Drinks: A Real Chocolate Martini and Winter Dessert Cocktails

The gold box shows up in our house sometime after Halloween, usually as a gift nobody remembers giving. Somewhere in the same cupboard there’s a bottle of Godiva chocolate liqueur, bought for a party two winters ago and still mostly full. Time to open it.

We like Godiva most when the evenings get dark at five. It’s thick, it’s sweet, and it tastes like the inside of a truffle, which means a little goes a long way. Every recipe linked below comes from our database, and the measurements are the ones we pour at home.

Dark Godiva or white Godiva?

The two bottles behave like different ingredients, so it helps to know which one you’re holding before you start shaking.

The original Godiva chocolate liqueur pours a glossy brown and tastes of cocoa first, then cream. It has enough bitterness to stand up to vodka, coffee and orange. The white chocolate bottle is paler and much softer, closer to vanilla custard than chocolate. It’s lovely with fruit, peppermint and ice cream, and it disappears behind anything bitter.

Both are much lower in alcohol than vodka, and a lot of recipes add some for backbone. Vodka holds the drink up. The liqueur brings dessert.

A chocolate martini done right

Most chocolate martinis we’ve been served taste like a melted milkshake, which is fine at a wedding and less fine at home. Ratio fixes most of it. We go two parts vodka to one part Godiva, shake it hard with plenty of ice, and strain it into a glass that’s been sitting in the freezer. A thick liqueur needs that extra water from the ice to loosen up, and cold makes the chocolate taste brighter. Skip the whipped cream mountain; a dusting of cocoa is plenty.

We keep coming back to the Chocolate Martini #3, which pairs Stoli Vanil with Godiva and drops a cherry in the bottom. The vanilla vodka rounds off the edges, and the cherry gives you something to look forward to. If you don’t keep flavored vodka, the Chocolate Covered Martini does the same job with plain vodka and a splash of vanilla schnapps.

Coffee people get the Mochachino Martini, which shakes Godiva with Van Gogh espresso vodka and a squeeze of Hershey’s syrup. We paint the syrup inside the glass before pouring. Pure vanity. The Mounds Martini skips vodka entirely for coconut rum, and it tastes exactly like the candy bar it’s named after. A twist of orange zest over the Sabra, made with Absolut Mandrin and Godiva, turns it into a chocolate orange you can drink.

If Baileys is the bottle you actually have, our Baileys chocolate martini works on the same idea with an Irish cream base.

White chocolate, softer and sweeter

The white bottle shines when we stop asking it to act like chocolate. Spoon two scoops of French vanilla ice cream into a blender with a couple of ounces of white Godiva, and you have the French Vanilla Godiva. It’s a grown-up milkshake, best poured into small glasses after a heavy dinner.

Talbot’s Dream is equal parts Baileys and white Godiva over ice, about as simple as it gets, and silky enough to sip slowly. For the holiday table we lean on the Coup De Grace, which shakes white Godiva with vodka and peppermint schnapps. It tastes like a candy cane dipped in white chocolate, and it looks like snow in a coupe.

Then the party trick. In the Preston, white Godiva meets Goldschläger, and little flecks of gold leaf catch the candlelight on the surface. Keep the pours small; cinnamon schnapps is strong stuff.

Godiva in a mug

Most of our winter evenings end with a mug. Good hot chocolate already tastes like dessert, and a pour of Godiva turns it into one you’d order at a ski lodge.

We make the Christmas more than any other drink in this post: hot chocolate, an ounce of Godiva and a handful of marshmallows that melt into a sticky cap on top. Kids get the same mug, minus the Godiva. For mint lovers, the Godiva Peppermint Patty adds Rumple Minze to the mug. That’s a 100-proof peppermint schnapps, so half an ounce is plenty. The Adirondack Mint Chocolate is the gentler cousin with regular peppermint schnapps.

We have a whole post of hot chocolate cocktails for nights when the wind rattles the windows.

Two bottles, one glass

One other bottle and some ice. That’s all these need.

Shake Godiva with triple sec and you have the Chokorange, which is the chocolate orange idea at its simplest. Stir it with Bärenjäger honey liqueur for the Chocolate Honeybee, warm and floral. Pour it over cold milk for the Monkey’s Heaven, the drink we hand anyone who claims not to like cocktails. Godiva and Rumple Minze, shaken and strained into a shot glass, make the Chocolate Covered Candy Cane. For a tray of small sweet pours like that one, our dessert shots post has more.

Then there’s the Godiva Whisper, which blends Cognac, vanilla ice cream and Godiva. It has replaced dessert at our table more than once in January, when nobody has the energy left to bake.

That half-full bottle from two winters ago didn’t last the season, in the end. When it ran low we typed Godiva and the rest of our cupboard into Cocktail Builder, and it turned up the Lovely Wife, vodka and Godiva with a little Chambord. Raspberry and dark chocolate, shaken very cold, on the last night of the year. We bought a second bottle in January.

Last modified on October 25, 2026