Snakebite Drink: The British Pint and the American Shot Share a Name

First guy who ever asked me for a snakebite was from Leeds. It was a busy Friday, so I grabbed the Yukon Jack and a lime without thinking. He stared at the shot glass like I’d handed him a live hamster.

“Mate. That’s not a snakebite.”

He was right. I was also right. Nobody in that argument was wrong, which is the annoying part.

Snakebite means two different drinks. Ask for one in Britain and you get a pint, half lager and half cider. Ask in most American or Canadian bars and you get whisky and lime, usually in a shot glass. Same name, nothing in common. Not even the glass.

In a British pub

This is the one most people mean when they type “snakebite drink recipe.” Our Snake Bite is half a pint of lager and half a pint of dry cider in a pint glass. The instructions on that page read, in full: “Pour ingredients into a pint glass. Drink. Fall over.” I couldn’t improve on it.

American readers, careful. “Cider” here means hard cider. The fermented stuff. Put grocery store apple cider in lager and you’ve made something I won’t discuss.

How I pour it:

Cold glass. Cold everything.
Tilt the glass. Cider first.
Lager second, slowly, down the side. Lager foams harder.
Do not stir. The pour does the mixing.

Dry cider or sweet? Dry. Sweet works, and the recipe even says so, but the sugar stacks up on the second pint and the pint turns into Jolly Rancher water. Strongbow is the name you’ll see most. Our British Snakebite calls for it, in a weirdly lopsided ratio of half a pint of Strongbow to a pint and a half of beer. That’s two pints of liquid in one recipe, so halve it. Then it tastes mostly like beer with an apple in the room.

That story about it being banned

You’ll hear it. I heard it from that guy from Leeds. Too strong, makes people violent, illegal to serve in Britain. Even our own British Snakebite page repeats it, because somebody typed it into the recipe years ago.

It’s lore. Good lore, too. The story goes that a pub in Harrogate turned down Bill Clinton in 2001 and told him it wasn’t legal. Maybe some pubs keep a house rule, since a landlord can refuse whatever he wants. But I’ve never seen anyone produce an actual law.

And the math doesn’t help the legend. Mix a 5% lager with a 5% cider and you have 5%. Averages don’t add up to rocket fuel. A snakebite is no stronger than the pint you’d have ordered anyway. It just goes down fast, because it’s cold and fizzy with no bitter edge to slow you. That’s the whole trick, and I’ve watched it work on a lot of college kids.

Snakebite and black

Add blackcurrant and the pint goes purple. That’s the student version, and anyone who spent a semester in Manchester will get misty about it.

Snakebite and Black puts the blackcurrant squash in first, about a centimeter deep, then lager, then cider. Snake Bite Black goes the other way, adding cordial last until the color turns. I go first. It mixes itself on the way in.

Can’t find blackcurrant squash in the States? Look for Ribena in the imports aisle. Otherwise use crème de cassis, but go easy, because that one adds booze.

Now the bad ideas. Somebody always has to take a good thing too far.

Snake Venom is the pint plus a shot of Pernod. Snakebite Jack tells you to drink the pint down a bit and pour in a shot of Jack Daniel’s. Worst thing I ever saw a bachelor party order. Second worst was the second round.

The Guinness question

Guinness comes up all the time. Technically stout and cider isn’t a snakebite, but it’s the same idea and I think it’s better.

The Black Apple is my pick. Fill a mug two-thirds of the way with cold Strongbow and add Guinness on top. It sits there as a black layer because Guinness is lighter than it looks. Pour it over the back of a spoon if your hands shake.

The Crown Float is the same build at equal parts. Fine for serious Guinness people. And the Black Velveteen flips it, twelve ounces of stout and four of cider in a big mug. It tastes like a cheap man’s Black Velvet, the Champagne version.

Got half of this in the fridge and no idea about the rest? Punch it into CocktailBuilder. More pints are on the easy beer cocktails list, and the apple side is in hard apple cider cocktails.

West of the Atlantic

Here’s what I thought I was making that night.

The plain Snakebite in our database is an ounce and a half of Canadian whisky and half an ounce of lime juice. Shake it and pour it in a rocks glass. Basically a sour with the sugar left out. It’s sharp and it’s a real drink, and I wish more people ordered it this way instead of as a dare.

The bar version uses Yukon Jack, and that’s the search that keeps showing up. Snakebite #4 is a shot glass three-quarters full of it plus a splash of lime. Yukon Jack is honey-sweet and 100 proof, so the lime has a job to do. Without it you’re drinking warm honey with a grudge. The rest of that bottle gets a whole post, Yukon Jack drinks.

Want it long? Aunt B’s Snakebite shakes an ounce of Yukon Jack with half an ounce of lime, plus splashes of sweet and sour and Sprite. Good on a patio.

Tequila, if you must

There’s no real tradition here. People just like the name. Snakebite #3 is equal parts tequila and Jack Daniel’s in a shot glass with five to ten drops of Tabasco. I’ve poured maybe a hundred of them and seen maybe two people want a second. Keep it at five drops.

So which one do I order?

Say the ingredients, every time. “Snakebite” is a coin flip in an American bar, and the answer depends on where the bartender learned the trade. “Half lager, half cider” gets you a pint anywhere. “Yukon Jack and lime” gets you a shot.

I should have asked that guy from Leeds. He drank the shot anyway. Then I poured him his pint, and he paid for both.

Last modified on November 1, 2026