Candied Rims for Cocktails is a fun, tasty way to up your home bartender game! Choose your candy based on your cocktail for the full package!
Originally Posted July 16, 2012. Updated 1/5/2021
As you may have guessed from my recent Birthday Cake Martini post, I am a big fan of customizing beautiful, flavorful rims for cocktails.
In addition to the added visual interest, customized rims can add a great pop of coordinated flavor to your chosen cocktail.
A great drink suddenly becomes memorable - garnishes can go a long way to establishing a"signature" drink for your wedding, party, or other special event.
While it's not the most common application out there, I love to use crushed hard candy to rim cocktail glasses.
They work particularly well for my taste in drinks ("Diabetes in a glass"!), and I love the way it looks.
Candy color and flavor can either match or contrast with the drink, and bring a bit of sparkle to the presentation of it. Also, the possibilities are almost endless!
Use crushed peppermint candies or candy canes (Great for holiday drinks!), black colored hard licorice flavored candies (Ouzo shots!), fruit flavored candies for a jeweled look, hard caramels / toffees (perfect for a Candy Apple Martini!)... cinnamon candies, coffee flavored hard candy on a chocolate or Kahlua based cocktail...
See what I mean? Tons of possibilities!
Candied cocktail rims are quick and easy to do, and the technique comes in handy for my NEXT blog post 🙂 Have fun with it!
How to Make Candied Cocktail Rims
1. Crush your candies. I like to use a mortar and pestle, but there are many ways to do this – food processor, rolling pin, hammer, etc.
You will want any chunks to be relatively small, or they’ll just fall off.
Alternatively, you can crush the candies down to a powder, for a less chunky look.
2. Once candies are crushed, spread them out on one of the plates – you’ll want to use them fairly soon – moisture in the air will make the crushed candies sticky.
3. Pour a small amount of corn syrup onto the second plate. Carefully twirl the very edge of a martini glass in the corn syrup, until the edge is coated the entire way around the rim.
4. Hold the glass above the plate and allow any excess corn syrup to drip off of the glass.
Take your time – extra syrup will run down the side of your glass, not hold the candy securely to the rim!
4. Twirl the edge of the rim through crushed candies, gently pressing down to secure.
5. Fill glass with cocktail of your choice. Enjoy!
Interested in boozy culinary fun? You should check out my first cookbook, The Spirited Baker. It’s FULL of fun, tasty recipes using spirits and liqueurs for flavour – you should check it out:
Combining liqueurs with more traditional baking ingredients can yield spectacular results.Try Mango Mojito Upside Down Cake, Candy Apple Flan, Jalapeno Beer Peanut Brittle, Lynchburg Lemonade Cupcakes, Pina Colada Rum Cake, Strawberry Daiquiri Chiffon Pie, and so much more.
To further add to your creative possibilities, the first chapter teaches how to infuse spirits to make both basic and cream liqueurs, as well as home made flavor extracts! This book contains over 160 easy to make recipes, with variation suggestions to help create hundreds more! Order your hard copy here on my website, through Amazon, or through any major bookseller.
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Candied Rims for Cocktails
Equipment
- Martini Cocktail Glass
- 2 Plates
Ingredients
- Hard Candies
- Corn Syrup
Instructions
- Crush your candies. I like to use a mortar and pestle, but there are many ways to do this – food processor, rolling pin, hammer, etc. You will want any chunks to be relatively small, or they’ll just fall off. Alternatively, you can crush the candies down to a powder, for a less chunky look.
- Once candies are crushed, spread them out on one of the plates – you’ll want to use them fairly soon – moisture in the air will make the crushed candies sticky.
- Pour a small amount of corn syrup onto the second plate. carefully twirl the very edge of a martini glass in the corn syrup, until the edge is coated the entire way around the rim.
- Hold the glass above the plate and allow any excess corn syrup to drip off of the glass. Take your time – extra syrup will run down the side of your glass, not hold the candy securely to the rim!
- Twirl the edge of the rim through crushed candies, gently pressing down to secure.
- Fill glass with cocktail of your choice. Enjoy!
More Cocktail Recipes
Looking for more ideas for cocktail hour? We've some recipes for you!
Birthday Cake Martini
Boozy Fun With Fresh Citrus
Boozy Sparkling Cider Float
Candy Apple Martini Recipe
Candy Cane Martini
"Drinking in LA" Cocktail
Fresh Peach Daiquiri Recipe
Fuzzy Peach Candy Cocktail
Grown-up Hot Chocolate & Hot Cocoa
Halloween Themed Shooters
Homemade Clamato & Bloody Caesars
Homemade Wine Slush Mix
Jolly Rancher Martinis
Marie's Favourite Mojito
Rum Runners Cocktail Recipe
The Science of Layered Shots
Up for even more ideas? Check out our Homemade Liqueur Recipes, Wine Making, and Spirited Cooking & Baking categories!
Jules - Toronto food photographer
Thank you for the great tip- I needed to know how to do this for an upcoming drink photography project. 🙂
Marie Porter
Awesome! I'd love to see the results!
Originalluxury
It is so beautiful. I'm glad that there are people like you, who create such amazing things.