Vegan Grasshopper

Author Notes

A Grasshopper was the first cocktail I ever made. In college I threw together a batch of this green-tinged concoction for a viewing of Barbarella with a few friends. Many people relegate the Grasshopper to the “bad” drinks pile, but I rekindled my affinity for this drink when I came across bartender Micah Melton’s Wasabi Grasshopper that’s prepared in an ice cream machine, giving it a texture unlike anything you could achieve in a blender or cocktail shaker.

The Grasshopper first appeared in print in the early 1900s where it was simply crème de menthe and crème de cacao layered on top of each other. In the 1950s, cream started to appear in the recipe and the drink took on more of an alcoholic milkshake vibe. It languished for a few decades before bartenders dusted it off and made attempts to modernize the drink, such as adding a good slug of French Cognac to cut the sweetness and add a bit more depth.

This rendition is a synthesis of the various Grasshopper iterations, with a twist: It’s vegan. We live in a golden age of non-dairy desserts so instead of cream, we’re working with non-dairy vanilla ice cream. The tricky thing about working with alcohol-inflected frozen drinks is that the ethanol lowers the freezing point of the mixture, meaning that the drink will need to be colder in order to maintain that smooth consistency. This is why I added the step of returning the ice cream machine’s freezer tub to the freezer. (if you’re using a machine with its own chilling unit, you can skip this step.)

Lastly, if you are a fun person and like doing cool things, then you’ll take the effort to rim your glasses with sprinkles. But it’s not the end of the world if you choose not to. —John deBary