Shots
From liquorice and salmiak to peppermint, cinnamon, and sour fruit: shots are the bottles and small bottles passed around at a party. What exactly they are, what families they come in, why they belong in the freezer, and which glass goes with them.
The best-known shot brands
Four bottles from four different parts of the shelf, all four so well known that they turn up at every party.
Apenshot
A Brabant shot from ABND Drinks Company in Breda that combines banana and liquorice. At 14%, it's the mildest of the bunch and made to be passed around.
About Apenshot →Dropshot
The black liquorice liqueur from De Kuyper in Schiedam: sweet, lightly salty, and mild enough to drink in one go. Double Black is stronger and saltier, at 24%.
About Dropshot →Flügel
The red 2 cl bottle with vodka and energy drink, created in the 1990s. Put the cap on your nose and empty it in one go: that's how it's done.
About Flügel →
Sourz
Brightly colored sweet-and-sour fruit liqueur in six flavors, starting with the green Sour Apple. Enjoy it neat as a shot or mixed with 7-Up, tonic, or soda.
About Sourz →Every shot drink in a row, by brand
12 brands and 10 flavors, each with its own page about taste, cocktails, and the right glass.
Not a category but a way of drinking
A shot is not a legally defined type of drink like gin or whisky, but a format and a way of drinking: a small glass of 2 to 4 cl that is emptied in one go. What is in that glass, for the bottles on this page, is almost always the same type of drink: a sweet liqueur or a flavored vodka drink of around 14 to 20%. Dropshot is 20%, as is Kleiner Feigling; Kleiner Klopfer is 15 to 17%, Sourz and Boswandeling are 15%, and Apenshot is 14%. At the lower end are Flügel and Nozem Oil at 10%; at the higher end are the herbal and cinnamon drinks: Salmari at 25%, Fireball at 33%, Jägermeister at 35% and Gold Strike at 50%.
That low percentage is no coincidence but a design choice. Liqueur is legally defined as containing at least 15% alcohol and at least 100 grams of sugar per liter, and it is precisely that sugar that makes a shot easy to drink in one gulp. The less alcohol there is in the bottle, the more room the flavor gets: at 14%, you taste the banana and licorice; at 40%, you mainly taste alcohol. A few shot drinks dip below the liqueur threshold at 10 or 14% and are therefore formally called something else, but on the shelf and in the glass they belong to the same family.
So don’t confuse these sweet shot drinks with a shot of neat spirits. A shot of tequila, vodka or whisky at 40% is the same amount of liquid, but contains more than twice as much alcohol and is intended for tasting or for drinking quickly. The bottles on this page are lighter, sweeter and smoother, and they are made to be shared with a group. Two shots of Dropshot contain roughly the same amount of alcohol as one shot of tequila.
In short
Five families you’ll find at every party
Shot drinks are classified by their flavoring. That immediately determines how sweet the bottle is, how cold it should be and what it can be mixed with.
Licorice and salmiak
The Dutch corner: deep black, sweet and with a salty edge of liquorice and salmiak. Dropshot is the sweetest, Salmari the saltiest, and Dropshot Double Black sits between them at 24%.
Peppermint
Crystal-clear liqueur that relies almost entirely on peppermint. Cold, it is refreshing and almost menthol-like; at room temperature, it quickly becomes too sweet. The classic after-dinner finish.
Cinnamon
The strongest corner of the shelf: sweet, hot cinnamon in whisky or neutral alcohol. Fireball is 33% and Gold Strike, with its 23-carat gold flakes, is 50%, so stick to small measures here.
Fruit and acidity
The largest and lightest family: apple, raspberry, passion fruit, fig, banana and coconut. The acidity in Sourz cuts through the sweetness, making a second shot easier to take than expected.
Herbs
Herbs, roots and peels, bittersweet and much more serious than the rest. At 35%, Jägermeister is the best-known and at the same time the link to the herbal bitters in the liqueur section.
There is also the creamy corner, with banana, coconut and caramel, as well as energy shots that contain caffeine alongside alcohol.
Sweetness is the foundation; the flavouring does the rest
Distinctive and direct
A shot smells like exactly one thing: liquorice, peppermint, cinnamon, sour apple or banana. Subtlety is not the goal; recognizability is. The alcohol itself remains in the background because of the low percentage.
Full-bodied, sweet and syrupy
Sugar gives it body, and you feel that body immediately. With liquorice and salty liquorice, there is also a salty edge; with Sourz, a sharp sour bite; and with cinnamon, a warm glow that only emerges after swallowing.
Short, or lingering saltiness
Most fruity shots disappear quickly, and that is the intention. Salty liquorice, peppermint and cinnamon linger for much longer; logically, you drink fewer of those in succession.
Average profile across the entire category. A salty liquorice shot scores lower on sweetness and higher on spiciness; a cinnamon shot at 33 or 50% has a strength rating of around 4.
Three ways to drink a shot
With shots, temperature does almost all the work. At room temperature, a sweet shot is syrupy and sticky; from the freezer, it is thick, cool and much better balanced.
Ice-cold from the freezer
Put the bottle in the freezer for at least four hours and pour 2 to 4 cl into a chilled shot glass. The sugar keeps it from freezing but makes it thicker, and the cold tempers the sweetness: that is exactly why, in a chilled Dropshot, you taste the salt and not just the sugar. Fill the glasses just before serving them.
The right glass →Straight from the bottle
Flügel, Kleiner Klopfer and Kleiner Feigling come in 2 cl bottles, in boxes of ten to forty. Put them in the refrigerator for a few hours or in a bucket of ice water for fifteen minutes. The ritual is part of it: tap the bottle on the bar, put the cap on your nose, toast and finish it in one go. At larger parties and in the hospitality industry, the same shot comes from a chilled dispensing system, with several bottles ready at serving temperature and multiple glasses filled at once.
More shot recipes →Lengthened as a highball
4 cl shot with about 150 ml of cola, 7-Up or sparkling water in a highball glass filled with ice. This way, you can empty a bottle with more people without everyone having to drink shots. Dropshot and Salmari work best with cola, Sourz with 7-Up, and Boswandeling with pineapple or orange juice.
Salmari cola recipe →The best-known shots
A shot doesn't have to come from the bottle. These are the four shots that appear on almost every menu and at every party.
Shots
The collection page with the best-known shot recipes, from sweet to sour and layered to creamy.
Jägerbomb
A shot of Jägermeister dropped into half a glass of energy drink. Also works with Flügel.
B52
Coffee liqueur, cream liqueur and orange liqueur poured over one another in three neat layers.
Apple Pie shot
Apple juice, cinnamon liqueur and vanilla: the shot that tastes like warm apple pie.The right glass for shots
A shot glass is small by design: the portion stays limited and the drink stays cold until the last sip. For a party, you mainly want plenty of them, and sturdy ones at that. These are the glasses we recommend ourselves.
Everything you still wanted to know about shot drinks
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