Perfect cocktails for Valentine’s Day

Looking for the ideal drink to raise to your loved one on the most romantic day of the year? Here are 10 perfect cocktails to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

We ask 10 of the best bartending brains in London to recommend their perfect Valentine’s Day cocktails

Cocktail bars the world-over will be celebrating Valentine’s Day with a host of sweet and fruity mixes served with decadent doses of strawberries, chocolate and Champagne.

In the run-up to 14 February, we ask some of the best bartenders in London to recommend their favourite Valentine’s Day cocktail recipes, from a chocolate butter and rum mix to apothecary bottles of “love potion”.

So, if you’re looking to spoil the one you love with more than just flowers and chocolates this weekend, take a look at our perfect cocktails for Valentine’s Day.

Click through the following pages to take a look at the creative recipes on offer. 

The Rivoli Bar at The Ritz – Dazzling Gem

Ingredients:

20ml Beluga vodka
15ml lavender & blueberry cordial
5ml citrus juice
Champagne
Violet air

Method:

Shake all the ingredients except the champagne and strain into a coupe glass. Top up with chilled champagne and finish with a violet air emulsion then garnish with a fresh lavender stick.

Walter Pintus, head bartender at The Rivoli Bar, The Ritz, London, said: “The Dazzling Gem cocktail is a synonym of a unique elegance and style designed with passion and love which makes this cocktail the perfect drink to celebrate a very special day”

Maggie’s – Sweet Child Of Mine

Ingredients:

30ml Belvedere Blackberry
10ml Chambord
15ml Cointreau
15ml fresh lime juice
35ml cranberry juice

Method:

Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass and shake hard. Then double strain into a chilled Martini glass and garnish with a flamed orange peel.

Kensington Palace Restaurant & Fish Shop – Love Potion

Ingredients:

30ml Sipsmith Vodka
20ml Sipsmith Damson vodka
2 fresh strawberries
½ a lime
10ml sugar (either syrup or granulated sugar)
35ml pineapple juice
20ml mango juice
1 shot of strawberry champagne

Method:

Muddle strawberries with sugar then add all other ingredients and shake. Double strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with strawberry. Serve next to a shot of strawberry flavoured champagne.

Imants Zusmanis, bar manager at Kensington Palace Restaurant & Fish Shop, London, said: “What speaks Valentines Day more than Strawberries and champagne? But instead of eating the strawberries here, you get to drink them.”

 Playboy Club – French Kiss

Ingredients:

40ml Ciroc Vodka
20ml Chambord
60ml Pineapple juice
Redcurrants to garnish

Method: 

Shake all if the ingredients with ice and serve straight up in a champagne coupe. Garnish with a string of redcurrants.

World class mixologist, Salvatore Calabrese, of the Playboy Club London, said: I created this cocktail especially for Valentine’s Day at Playboy Club, for it celebrates all things sweet and romantic at this special time of year.”

Barts – Forbidden Love

Ingredients:

50ml Havana 7 infused with chocolate butter
3 slices of fresh pear
Splash of cherry juice
Garnish with a homemade Havana 7 chocolate biscuit dessert

Method:

Smash the pear into the bottom of a boston glass. Pour inside all other ingredients and shake well before serving in a Martini glass. Garnish with home made chocolate and ice malt sugar rose.

Vincenzo Sibilia, head mixologist, Barts, London, said: “Valentine’s Day is the most romantic day of the year, and as a romantic person I can’t see any better way to celebrate this day than with with a sweet drink that features guilty pleasures such as chocolate and also juicy red fruits. The fact that these flavours are then made even more warming by a generous serving of Havana 7 Rum, will only serve to kick start that warm fuzzy feeling. After all, a cheeky tipple always helps people to fall in love.”

Bam-Bou – Lover’s Liquor

Ingredients:

30ml Passoa
30ml Aperol
20ml Mandarine Napoleon
Garnish with a single prophetic tarot card

Method:

Fill your mixing glass with ice cubes then add all of the ingredients and stir well. Strain and pour into an apothecary’s bottle and refrigerate until serving. For best effect this drink should be served as chilled as possible.

Bam-Bou – Ever After Elixir

Ingredients:

50ml Bacardi Superior
15ml Cacao blanc
15ml Velvet Falernum
Garnish with a single prophetic tarot card

Method:

Same as Lover’s Liquor.

Bunga Bunga – Caesar and Cleopatra

Ingredients:

125ml Belvedere vodka
400ml flavoured liquid sugar
Pinch of red sorrel
Pinch of dry lime
100ml lime juice
Top up with Prosecco

Method:

Put all of the ingredients into a shaker and shake vigorously. Pour into a very large sharer glass over ice and top up with Prosecco.

Renato de Benedictus, head bartender at Bunga Bunga, London, said: “This is a great cocktail for Valentine’s Day as it is red – the colour of love, large enough to share from long straws (Lady and the Tramp style) and is decorated with real roses. Very romantic indeed.”

Archer Street – Kiss From a Rose

Ingredients:

35ml Ketel One Vodka
15ml rose liqueur
15ml honey syrup
15ml egg white
25ml pomegranate juice
15ml lemon juice
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

Method:

Shake and fine strain all ingredients then garnish with a red spear through a Haribo heart.

Mike Rogers, head bartender at Archer Street, London, said: “A rose is not just a rose. This Valentine’s Day, our customers can experience a kiss from a rose with our limited edition cocktail. Banish those grey days from the fist sip of this deliciously sweet cocktail made with rose liqueur.”

Strip Bar & Steak – Reverse Cowboy

Ingredients:

30ml Chocolate & raspberry vodka
25ml Rose wine
15ml Hennessy VS
15ml Dry vermouth
15ml Cinnamon syrup
10ml Frangelico
10ml Egg white

Method: 
Add ice to a mixer, then add all ingredients, shake & fine strain into chilled glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick, edible flower, cinnamon dust.