Ingredients
- 1 oz Raspberry Liqueur
- 1 oz Coconut Rum
- 1 Splash(s) Sours
- 1 Splash(s) Apple Juice
- 1/2 oz Blue Curacao Liqueur
Instructions
Blend Ingredients:
- Combine raspberry liqueur, coconut rum, sours, apple juice, and blue curacao in a blender.
Chill:
- Pour the mixture into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled.
Serve:
- Strain into 2–3 shot glasses and get ready to enjoy!
Notes
Estimated Nutrition:
Where it came from
The Dirty Bong Water belongs to the family of joke-name shots and shooters that came out of US college bars in the 1990s. The mix is a Bay Breeze with extra raspberry and a blue curacao float. The blue plus the apple juice yellow gives the drink its murky tone.
It is built as a tall shot or a small cocktail in a rocks glass. Either works. The recipe survives a generous pour.
What it tastes like
Sweet, fruity and tropical. Raspberry up front, coconut on the mid-palate, apple juice for body, blue curacao for the orange-zest finish. The sour mix keeps it from going syrupy.
It drinks much better than it looks. The colour is the joke. The flavour is a respectable summer cocktail.
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Ingredient Spotlight
The bottles that make or break this drink.
The raspberry liqueur
- Use
- Chambord, the original spec
- Try
- Lejay Creme de Framboise
- Skip
- Raspberry syrup, no body
The coconut rum
- Use
- Malibu Original
- Why
- The coconut is the second loudest note in the glass
- Skip
- Plain white rum, the drink loses the tropical
The sour mix
- Use
- Equal parts fresh lemon juice and sugar syrup
- Skip
- Bottled neon-yellow sour mix, full of artificial flavour
- Why
- The sour balances the apple juice and the raspberry
Why Dirty Bong Water works (the green hue is from blue + sour)
Stoner-party shooter that looks like the title suggests. Five ingredients, no cannabis, all the chaos.
The technique
Build cold in a shaker without ice first. Pour all five ingredients in – raspberry liqueur, coconut rum, sour mix, apple juice, blue curacao. Add ice, shake hard 5-6 seconds. Strain into shot glasses.
The trademark murky green-brown color happens when blue curacao mixes with apple juice and raspberry liqueur. Bartenders sometimes drop a single mint leaf in for the “bong water” effect.
Brand picks
Raspberry liqueur: Chambord is the standard. The cheaper raspberry schnapps versions are too sweet and lose the fruit depth.
Coconut rum: Malibu is canonical. Captain Morgan Coconut works but is sweeter.
Sour mix: Skip the bottled stuff. Mix fresh lemon juice with simple syrup 1:1 – takes 30 seconds and changes the drink. Bottled sour mix has high-fructose corn syrup that throws the balance off.
Blue curacao: Bols Blue. The colour is doing real work in this drink.
Apple juice: Cloudy unfiltered apple juice (not apple cider) for the right consistency.
Common mistakes
Over-shaking. Five seconds is plenty. Longer and you dilute the drink and lose the chaotic colour.
Using just sweet-and-sour drink mixers. The sour mix needs real lemon. Drink-mixer brands are too sweet.
Trying to make it actually green. Adding green food coloring or melon liqueur defeats the joke. The murky bong-water look IS the visual gag.
What if I don't have…
Quick substitutions for when the bottle shop is closed.
Briottet Creme de Framboise or Lejay. Cheaper but very close.
Plain white rum plus a teaspoon of cream of coconut.
White grape juice or pineapple juice both work. Tropical direction shifts but the drink survives.
Plain triple sec plus a drop of blue food colouring. Or skip the blue and accept a brown drink.
Add 15 ml of vodka. Becomes essentially an Adios Motherfucker variant.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Direct answers to what people search for after Googling this drink.
Why is the colour so ugly?
Is it a shot or a cocktail?
How strong is it?
Can I make it less sweet?
Does the blue actually taste like anything?
