Brandy is one of the most popular types of alcohol for people around the world to drink. With brandy being so widespread, it is no surprise that there are a variety of ways that people enjoy consuming the beverage. Some prefer to consume the brandy without any additions, while others will add other drinks or items to the brandy to enhance and add to the existing flavors.
Whether you prefer your brandy “neat” or without additions, or as part of a mixer, we all can agree that brandy is an excellent drink for a variety of situations. With that in mind, here is a list of some of the best mixers that you should consider adding to your next brandy cocktails.
1. Orange Juice
To start out our list, we need to talk about orange juice mixed with brandy. Orange is one of the most popular additions to the drink, and by adding orange juice as the mixer instead of the whole fruit, you give some noticeable benefits to the drink. By adding orange juice to the drink, you enhance the fruity flavors of the brandy.
Since there is plenty of water and sugar in orange juice, when using it as a mixer, you will end up with a cocktail that is sweeter and fruitier, and you can drink more of it since the impact of the alcohol has been limited by the water in the juice.
2. Fruit Slices
Another addition that you can make is adding fruit slices as mixers to your brandy. Your best option is to use citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, or grapefruits. These slices are often stuck on the top of the glass before the brandy is poured in. This allows you to enjoy the aroma of the brandy as well as that of the fruit. The fruit can then be eaten as a side or dipped in the brandy to add a slightly fruity flavor to the brandy.
Related 10 Best Sweet Alcoholic Drinks For Taste Bud Bliss.
3. Chocolate Milk
Perhaps a surprising member of this list is chocolate milk. Many different dairy products are excellent mixers with brandy, but chocolate milk is particularly noteworthy.
Adding chocolate milk to the brandy will change the flavor to a drink that is much sweeter, as well as suppressing some of the more earthy tones of the brandy. More importantly, using chocolate milk as a mixer will make the drink thicker, resulting in a thick, rich-flavored drink.
4. Hot Chocolate
A similar item to the one above is using hot chocolate as your mixer. By doing this, you gain the benefits of the chocolate flavor that we talked about above, resulting in a brandy drink with a strong and sweet flavor, as well as a wonderful chocolate flavor.
One change that you might see if you try using both chocolate milk and hot chocolate as mixers is the effect the temperature can have on the drink. For this reason, it is best to save hot chocolate for a cold winter day as a nice warm drink.
5. Coffee
Another option to add as a mixer is to use coffee. Coffee is a popular addition to brandy in the Spanish cocktails Carajillo and Belmonte. By adding bitter coffee to the sweeter brandy, you can experience the full range of each of the sides’ flavors.
Some recipes, like the Carajillo, only call for mixing coffee and brandy, while others add milk or other mixers into the mix. Whatever you end up setting on, coffee is a great mixer to use with brandy.
Related 10 Best Tasting Alcoholic Drinks That You Won’t Hate.
6. Coca Cola
Another mixer that you might already have lying around your home is Coca-Cola. While it might seem odd to mix the classy brandy with a soda drink found in fast food restaurants, the combination of the two is surprisingly powerful. The fruitiness of the brandy mixes well with the surgery and caramel flavors of the Coke.
7. Club Sodas
A type of mixer that you might already be familiar with is that of club sodas. These are a popular addition to brandy because of their versatility. You can add a plain soda to the brandy to add a bit of bitterness and fizz to the drink. You can also pick from a variety of flavored sodas to add a new flavor each time you choose this as a mixer.
8. Maraschino Cherry Syrup
A bit of a more exotic mixer is maraschino cherry syrup. This syrup is a great addition to any brandy cocktail that already has some fruit in it. The additional cherry flavor and sweetness as a mixer will boost the flavors of the glass even higher.
9. Milk or Cream
One common addition as a mixer is milk and other dairy products. When using these as a mixer, you can change what type of drink your brandy is.
Adding these changes the brandy from a drink you sip slowly to a thick and rich drink that you cannot stop drinking. It also works excellent with the other mixers on this list to make an even more complex drink.
Related 10 Best Non-Alcoholic Substitutes for Brandy in Cooking.
10. Sweet Tea
If you need a quick summer drink, you might want to consider mixing brandy and sweet tea. Make a pitcher of tea and mix brandy in until it matches your taste preference. If you want more of the tea flavor, add less brandy, and add more brandy to enhance those spicy notes.
11. Ginger Ale
An unheralded mixer for brandy is ginger ale. By adding the dry flavor of the ginger to the brandy, you can build a drink with a complex flavor without a ton of work on your part.
12. Hot Water
Perhaps a surprising addition to this list is using plain hot water as a mixer with brandy. While this might seem counterintuitive to make a flavorful drink, adding water tends to weaken, not strengthen, flavors.
As it turns out, hot water is a surprisingly potent mixer for brandy. The water lessens the impact of the alcohol, letting you enjoy more of the brandy, as well as making the cocktail extremely aromatic. It also lets you enjoy flavors that you might not have tasted in your brandy before since brandy is typically served chilled.
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For more, check out Top 20 Mixers For Alcoholic Beverages
Anne James has a wealth of experience in a wide array of interests and is an expert in quilting, cooking, gardening, camping, mixing drinks (worked as a professional bartender), and making jelly.
Anne has a professional canning business, has been featured in the local newspaper as well as on the Hershey website, and has been her family canner for decades. Anyone growing up in the South knows that there is always a person in the family who has knowledge of the “old ways,” and this is exactly what Anne is.
With over 55 years of experience in these endeavors, she brings a level of hands-on knowledge that is hard to surpass. Amazingly, she doesn’t need to reference many resources due to her vast wealth of experience. She IS the source.
Anne wants nothing more than to pass on her extensive knowledge to the next generations, whether that be family or anyone visiting her website, her YouTube channel, or preservingsweetness.com.