Midori Shots: 7 Melon Shooters That Glow Green

Order a round of anything made with Midori and the whole bar knows before the tray lands. The green is that green. Underneath the color there’s honeydew melon, soft and sweet enough to smooth over stronger spirits. Forty-plus years on, the bottle is still earning its shelf space.

Seven melon shooters, from the classic to the chaotic, then three more once the first round is gone.

7 Midori & melon shots

Melon Ball

Midori, vodka, and orange juice in equal parts. The definitive melon shooter, and still the first one to reach for. See recipe

Pro tip: Swap the orange juice for pineapple and it gets noticeably brighter. Both versions have their partisans.

Scooby Snack

Midori, coconut rum, banana liqueur, pineapple juice, and whipped cream, shaken until frothy. Absurd on paper, beloved in practice. See recipe

Sex With an Alligator

Midori and sweet and sour on the bottom, raspberry liqueur sinking through it, Jägermeister floated on top. Sweet start, herbal ambush finish. The most dramatic build in the melon family. See recipe

Green Monster

Tequila, melon liqueur, and Pisang Ambon. Melon with a tequila spine, for drinkers who find the Melon Ball too gentle. See recipe

Midori Sour

Midori, sour mix, and a splash of Sprite. Usually served tall, but it works as a big, fizzy shooter, and it’s the easiest introduction to the bottle. See recipe

Jolly Rancher

Melon liqueur, blueberry schnapps, grenadine, and sweet and sour. Hard candy in a glass, with melon doing the impression of green apple. See recipe

Tokyo Tea

The escalation clause: gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and Midori with sour mix and lemon-lime soda. A Long Island Iced Tea dressed in green. Not a shot, and not to be treated like one. See recipe

Three more melon shots

Pineapple and coconut rum run through all of these; the what to mix with Midori list and the Malibu list overlap more than either brand would like.

Alien Secretion

Midori, coconut rum, and pineapple juice, equal parts. Coconut rounds off the melon, pineapple keeps it from going flat. Dreadful name, and a fixture on shot lists for thirty years. See recipe

Pro tip: Shake it. Built in the glass, it splits into a green layer and a cloudy one inside a minute.

Shrek

Vodka, melon liqueur, peach schnapps, and coconut rum, half an ounce each, with a quarter ounce each of pineapple juice and Sprite. Swamp green, tastes like a fruit cup. The recipe calls for a three-ounce shot glass and means it. See recipe

Pro tip: The recipe’s own warning: go light on the Sprite and pineapple, just enough to fill the glass. More than that and the melon disappears.

Liquid Marijuana Shot

Midori, coconut rum, spiced rum, and blue curaçao, a quarter ounce each, with splashes of pineapple and sweet and sour, shaken and strained. Blue over green lands on a murky teal, hence the name. See recipe

Pro tip: Measure the curaçao. A heavy hand turns it from teal to swamp, and the orange in the curaçao starts to fight the melon.

If you’re missing a bottle

• No Midori: DeKuyper Melon or Bols Melon. The flavor is close and the color a shade paler. Both run cheaper.
• No Pisang Ambon (Green Monster): banana liqueur plus two or three drops of blue curaçao. Pisang Ambon is a green banana liqueur, so that gets you the color and most of the flavor.
• No sweet and sour mix (Midori Sour, Jolly Rancher, Sex With an Alligator, Tokyo Tea): equal parts lemon juice and simple syrup. Lemonade in a pinch, though it’s sweeter.
• No coconut rum (Scooby Snack, Alien Secretion, Shrek, Liquid Marijuana Shot): white rum with a teaspoon of cream of coconut per shot.
• No raspberry liqueur (Sex With an Alligator): raspberry schnapps sinks the same way. Skip the Jägermeister float and you’ve got a raspberry melon sour, which is still worth drinking.

Frequently asked questions

What is Midori?

A bright-green Japanese melon liqueur, around 20% ABV, flavored with muskmelon. The name means “green” in Japanese. It launched at Studio 54 in 1978 and has been the melon standard ever since.

What mixes well with Midori?

Citrus and pineapple juice, vodka, coconut rum, and sour mix. Its honeydew sweetness needs some acid alongside it, which is why almost every Midori recipe includes juice or sour.

Is there a substitute for Midori?

Any melon liqueur will do the job; DeKuyper’s Melon is the common budget swap. You’ll lose a little of the signature glow but keep the flavor.

What’s in a Melon Ball shot?

Equal parts Midori, vodka, and orange juice, shaken and strained. Some bars swap the orange for pineapple juice.

Does Midori go bad after opening?

Not for a long while. At 20% ABV with plenty of sugar it doesn’t spoil, but the color and melon aroma fade after a year or two open. Store it upright away from sunlight, which is what bleaches the green.

What’s the strongest Midori shot?

The Green Monster, which is nothing but tequila and two liqueurs. The Tokyo Tea has four spirits in it but it’s a tall drink, not a shot, so the alcohol per sip is lower than it looks.

One green bottle and half your shot list changes color. Start with a round of Melon Balls, save the Tokyo Tea for a slow night, and keep exploring the shots and shooters collection from there. If the tray needs more colors than green, the fruity shots list covers the rest of the spectrum.

Last modified on September 3, 2026