Jolly Rancher Vodka: Ratio, Mason Jars, and the Green Apple Shot

Twenty candies. One pint mason jar. Twelve ounces of vodka. That’s the whole recipe, and I’ll defend it.

I made my first batch of this behind a college bar that had no business serving it. The owner bought a five-pound bag of Jolly Ranchers on sale. We dumped half of it into a plastic jug of well vodka, mixed flavors, and let it sit by the ice machine. It came out brown. It tasted like a cough syrup that had been to a carnival. People drank it anyway. Then we did it properly, one flavor per jar, and the green apple sold out every Friday for a year.

The ratio

Jolly Ranchers are hard candy. Sugar and corn syrup boiled into glass, plus acid, flavor and dye. Each piece weighs roughly six grams, and almost all of that is sugar.

So the math is simple. Twenty pieces is around 120 grams of candy. In 12 ounces of vodka that lands close to a liqueur, but you can still taste the vodka underneath.

Go lower if you want to mix it. Fifteen pieces per pint jar makes a cleaner base for soda. Go higher and it turns syrupy. I’ve tried thirty in a jar. Nobody wanted a second shot.

For a full 750 ml bottle, use about forty.

Sort by flavor

Do not mix the bag. I learned that one the hard way, by the ice machine.

The dyes blend into mud and the flavors blend into generic fruit. Sorted, every jar keeps its own color, and a row of them on a shelf looks great at a party.

Green apple is the winner. Every time. Sharp, sour, almost like a candy apple martini without the schnapps.

Dissolve time

Whole pieces take forever. They’re dense, and they only dissolve from the outside in. Leave them whole and you’re waiting a day or two.

Crush them first. Put the candy in a zip bag, wrap it in a towel, hit it with a rolling pin. Small chunks, not powder. Powder clumps at the bottom of the jar and turns into a sticky brick.

Then:

1. Drop the crushed candy into a clean pint mason jar.
2. Pour in 12 ounces of vodka. Leave headroom for shaking.
3. Screw the lid tight. Shake hard for 30 seconds.
4. Shake again every time you walk past it.

Crushed candy is mostly gone in four to eight hours. Overnight for sure. No heat needed. Skip the dishwasher trick and the hot water bath. Hot alcohol in a sealed jar is a bad idea, and patience is free.

Straining

Hard candy leaves very little behind. No wax coat, unlike Skittles. You might see a few undissolved specks or a faint haze at the bottom.

Pour it through a fine strainer if there are chunks. A coffee filter if you want it crystal clear. Mostly I just pour carefully and leave the last half inch in the jar.

Our Skittles vodka post has the full filter routine, since that candy really needs it.

Sugar and storage

This stuff is sweet. Figure on about 12 grams of sugar in a 1.5-ounce shot at the twenty-candy ratio. A soda’s worth of sugar every three or four shots. It sneaks up on people because it tastes like candy, not booze.

It keeps. Vodka at that strength doesn’t spoil. Store the jars in the fridge or freezer and serve them ice cold. Cold mutes the sweetness and sharpens the sour. Room temperature Jolly Rancher vodka is a mistake.

The dye stains. Blue raspberry took the finish off a bar top I worked on, and it never came back.

The green apple Jolly Rancher drink

Here’s the one people actually search for. And here’s the thing. The famous green apple Jolly Rancher drink isn’t made with candy at all.

The Apple Jolly Rancher is vodka, sour apple pucker, sweet and sour mix and 7-Up. That’s the bar version. I’d pour an ounce of vodka, an ounce of sour apple schnapps, two ounces of sour mix, and top it with 7-Up over ice. Bright green, tart, tastes exactly like the candy.

Want it as a shot? Drop the 7-Up. Shake the other three hard with ice and strain. That’s the green apple Jolly Rancher shot.

Want it with your homemade jar? Swap the plain vodka for green apple Jolly Rancher vodka and cut the schnapps in half. Even more candy. Not for everyone.

Our sour apple pucker drinks roundup has more in that same green lane.

More Jolly Rancher drinks

CocktailBuilder has a whole shelf of these. Some use real candy, most use schnapps to fake it.

Real candy. The Jolly Rancher #5 is vodka, Jolly Rancher candy and 7-Up. Your jar plus soda. Done. The Jolly Joker is the infusion itself, original-flavor candy in Smirnoff. The Jolly Rancher Rita drops candy into margarita mix over ice. Use watermelon. Trust me.

Schnapps versions. The Green Jolly Rancher is Southern Comfort, Midori and sweet and sour. Peachy melon. Lisa’s Jolly Rancher mixes cranberry juice with sour apple and watermelon pucker. That one tastes like the watermelon candy. The Jolly Rancher is vodka, Midori and cranberry, a plain, easy party shot.

For a crowd. Jolly Rancher Jello Shots use green apple Jell-O and sour apple pucker. Make them the night before.

If the party leans hard on candy, our candy shots list has more. Gummy bears, candy corn, cinnamon.

Mason jar gifts

Pint jars with a ribbon and a handwritten label. Green apple, cherry, blue raspberry. Every holiday party I’ve brought these to, they were gone first.

Make them two days ahead. Strain, wipe the rims, new lids. Write the flavor and the date on masking tape, and “freezer” underneath. My aunt kept hers in the pantry for a year and poured it over vanilla ice cream, which, fine.

Last modified on November 8, 2026