New Year's Eve Shots: 7 for Midnight, Including the Ones You Set on Fire
New Year’s Eve is the one occasion on which a drink is permitted to be theatre, which is why five of the seven shots below involve setting something alight and why nobody does this in March.
The physics is worth understanding before the recipes are, because it determines which of these will work and which will simply sit there. Ethanol vapour ignites at around 13°C once the concentration above the liquid is high enough, but the liquid itself must be strong enough to keep supplying that vapour: below roughly 40% ABV a spirit will not sustain a flame at room temperature, and below about 50% it will not light reliably. That single threshold explains every choice made in the recipes that follow — the 151 float, the warmed whiskey, the high-proof sambuca.
Read this before you light anything
Flaming drinks are genuinely dangerous, and the sources that publish them are consistently careless, so three rules apply and none of them is optional.
Extinguish the flame before drinking, every time. Burning ethanol runs at roughly 200°C and, because its flame emits very little visible light, it is close to invisible in a lit room, which is the single most common way people are injured by it. Covering the glass with a coaster or saucer for two seconds starves the flame and cools the rim at once. Several published recipes, including one below, instruct the drinker to use a straw while the surface is still alight; that instruction should be ignored.
Never pour from a bottle near a lit glass. Overproof spirit will carry a flame back up the stream and into the bottle, which is the mechanism behind almost every serious flaming-drink accident. Pour everything first, cap the bottles, move them off the working surface, and only then reach for a light.
Have the cover in hand before the flame exists — a saucer, a small plate, or a shaker tin. Water is not used on burning spirit, because it spreads rather than smothers, and a damp cloth has no place near this at all.
One further point of technique: the flame heats the glass far faster than it heats the liquid, so a shot that has burned for thirty seconds will take skin off a lip while the drink inside is still cool. Ten seconds is ample for the effect.
With that said.
The flaming ones
Flaming Lamborghini
The centrepiece, and the most involved drink on this blog. An ounce each of Kahlúa and sambuca go into a cocktail glass; Baileys and blue curaçao go into two separate shot glasses standing by. The sambuca and Kahlúa are lit, and the other two are poured in while it burns.
It is a piece of bar performance from the 1980s and it is still the one people film. Four liqueurs, one of which is on fire, and a result that tastes considerably better than a drink this silly has any right to. See recipe
If you make one thing here, make this — but make it once, sober, in daylight, before you make it for a room at 11:55.
Flaming Pumpkin
Half an ounce of Baileys, half an ounce of Kahlúa, a quarter ounce of Goldschläger layered on top, lit, with cinnamon sprinkled over the flame.
The cinnamon is the trick and it is worth understanding: ground spice thrown across a flame catches as a shower of sparks, which is where the drink gets its name and its entire reason for existing. Put it out, then drink it. See recipe
Flaming Russian
An ounce of vodka with a small layer of overproof rum floated on top and lit. The rum is there because vodka at 40% will not hold a flame reliably and 151 will.
This is the simplest flaming build and therefore the one most likely to be attempted badly. The float has to sit cleanly on top or nothing lights. See recipe
Flaming Blue Fuck
An ounce and a half of sambuca with half an ounce of blue curaçao, stirred, then lit.
The published instruction for this one tells you to drink it through a straw while it burns. Do not. Put the flame out, let the glass sit for ten seconds, then drink it like a normal shot — it tastes the same and the blue is just as good to look at. See recipe
Flaming Boilermaker
A shot of whiskey dropped into a pint of beer, with the whiskey warmed first because whiskey at standard strength will not light cold.
Honestly the least rewarding of the five — the flame is brief, the beer kills it instantly, and you are left with a boilermaker. Included because people ask. See recipe
The two that do not burn
Dead Man Walking
Equal parts absinthe and Goldschläger. No fire, and it does not need any — absinthe and cinnamon together are loud enough. This is the one to pour for the person who has watched the other five and wants something that tastes of something. See recipe
Platinum Bullet
An ounce of vodka and an ounce of peppermint schnapps, shaken with ice and strained into a shot glass. The recipe asks for green peppermint schnapps, which makes it look like nothing else on the table.
Cold, clean, fast to make in a round of ten, and the only thing here you can hand to someone who has already had a Lamborghini. See recipe
Getting a round of ten out in time for the countdown
The flaming ones do not scale. That is the practical problem with the whole category — each one is built individually and takes thirty seconds of attention, so a round of ten takes five minutes and the countdown does not wait.
What works: build the Platinum Bullets in advance in a shaker, keep them in the freezer, and pour those at midnight. Do the theatre at eleven, when people are watching and nobody is in a hurry. Trying to reverse that order is how the Lamborghini ends up being made at 11:59 by someone who should not be handling a lighter.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most popular New Year’s Eve shot?
The Flaming Lamborghini is the one most associated with celebration nights — Kahlúa, sambuca, Baileys and blue curaçao, assembled while the first two are alight. For a round that has to move quickly, a chilled vodka-and-peppermint shot like the Platinum Bullet is far more practical.
Is it safe to drink a flaming shot?
Only after you put the flame out. Cover the glass to extinguish it, give it a few seconds to cool, then drink. Never drink from a glass that is still burning and never drink a flaming shot through a straw, whatever the recipe says.
What alcohol will catch fire in a shot?
Anything above roughly 50% ABV lights readily — overproof rum, absinthe, high-proof sambuca. Standard 40% spirits are unreliable cold, which is why flaming recipes either use a 151 float or warm the spirit first.
How do you put out a flaming drink?
Cover the top of the glass with a coaster, saucer or small plate for two or three seconds. It starves the flame of air and cools the rim at the same time. Never use water.
Three of the drinks above depend on a clean float, a technique covered properly in the layered shots guide, while the Christmas shots roundup handles the cream-and-mint end of the same December shelf for anyone who would rather not involve a naked flame — and the builder indexes the rest.
Last modified on September 19, 2026
