Shots That Taste Good, Sorted by How They Hide the Burn

A shot only tastes good if something is lying to your mouth.

Cream lies. So does sugar. Cold lies a little and mint lies a lot. Straight liquor can’t, which is why people make that face after tequila. I watched that face across a bar top for years and nobody ever ordered a second round of it.

So don’t ask which shots taste good. Ask which lie you like. Every shot here sits in our database with real pours, and I’ll tell you which ones actually hit, because most of the tasty ones don’t.

Cream

Surest bet in the building. Fat coats your tongue and the booze has less to grab onto.

Start with the Baby Guinness. An ounce and a half of Kahlua, a dash of Baileys on top. It looks like a tiny pint and tastes like coffee candy. Pour the Baileys slow, over a spoon if your hands shake.

The Oatmeal Cookie is half an ounce each of cinnamon schnapps, butterscotch schnapps and Baileys, shaken hard. Stupid name for a drink. Completely honest name, though. My go-to for the friend who swears she hates shots was the Gingerbread Man, which doubles the Baileys against butterscotch and Goldschläger. She never hated shots. She hated Jose Cuervo.

Want something that looks like you know what you’re doing? The B-52 is a third of an ounce each of Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Marnier, layered in that order. Slammed bartenders may skip the layers. Same taste.

Lemon and sugar

Your mouth gets so busy with sour and sweet that the vodka slips right past.

The Lemon Drop #2 is one shot of Absolut Citron, a slice of lemon and a teaspoon of sugar. Sugar on the lemon, shoot the vodka, bite down. It tastes like lemonade with a grudge.

Then there’s the Chocolate Cake Shot. Half an ounce of Frangelico, half an ounce of vanilla vodka, sugar and lemon on the rim. Lick the rim, shoot it, bite a lemon. Not a drop of chocolate in it, and hazelnut plus sugared lemon fakes it anyway. A guy once accused me of hiding cocoa somewhere. He checked the bottles.

Candy in a glass

Fruit shots live or die on how sweet you can stand it.

• Washington Apple Shot. Crown Royal, sour apple schnapps, cranberry, a third of an ounce each, plus a splash of 7-Up. Sour apple candy with some whisky behind it.
• Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. An ounce of vanilla vodka, an ounce of pineapple juice, one drop of grenadine.
• Melon Ball. Midori, vodka and orange juice in equal parts. Looks radioactive. Drinks like a Jolly Rancher.
• Surfer on Acid. Jägermeister, Malibu, pineapple. This converts Jäger haters. Coconut and pineapple bury the licorice alive.

Cold, then colder

Cold numbs and it costs nothing. Stick the glasses in the freezer and shake longer than feels necessary.

A Kamikaze in a warm glass tastes like a mistake. Same half ounce of vodka and quarter ounce each of triple sec and lime in a frozen glass tastes like sharp cold limeade. A Purple Hooter goes the same way: vodka, Chambord, splash of 7-Up, ice cold or don’t bother.

Mint cheats harder. Menthol tells your nerves that things are cold when they aren’t. Rumple Minze is 100 proof, and in a Candy Cane Shot with peppermint schnapps and half an ounce of cream it goes down like a breath mint. That should scare you a bit.

Easy ones with two bottles

Hosting and don’t want to shake anything? Keep it to a pair of bottles.

Kahlua and Baileys gets you the Baby Guinness. Vodka and apple juice gets you the Apple Pie Shot further down. Black raspberry liqueur and Frangelico is a Peanut Butter and Jelly, an ounce of each, and it tastes exactly like the sandwich. That recipe gets shaken and strained into a rocks glass. I split it into two shots.

Half a shelf of sticky liqueurs left over from some party? Type them into CocktailBuilder and see what you can pour.

But do they get you drunk?

Mostly no. The tasty ones are short on liquor.

Kahlua runs 20%. Baileys, 17%. Two Baby Guinnesses come to about one beer. Counting a drink as 1.5 ounces of 80-proof, here’s how these stack up:

So if you want strong shots that taste good, that middle stretch is your list. The Pineapple Upside Down Cake Shooter is the sleeper. Vodka, bourbon, a little peach schnapps, pineapple and cherry juice, two ounces all in. The bourbon gives it a caramel thing that the name promises and the vodka version never delivers.

The Apple Pie Shot is a shot of vodka and a shot of apple juice with cinnamon on your tongue. The recipe says to shake your head until the cinnamon dissolves. I have no defense for that. It works.

I put the Four Horsemen in that table as a warning. Strong, yes. Tastes good? Ask anyone who’s had one.

I cut off way more people on Lemon Drops than on tequila. Tequila tells you when to stop. A shot that tastes like lemonade doesn’t, and the same goes for drinks that don’t taste like alcohol in a tall glass, where the science of the burn gets a proper explanation. Ordering out instead of pouring at home? Here are the shots to order at a bar that any bartender can make without looking anything up.

And if somebody buys the table a round of Baby Guinness, drink it. Best free dessert you’ll get all night.

Last modified on November 1, 2026