The YouTube Guide to Cocktails: The 6 Best Drinks Channels

Happy (early) birthday, YouTube. To celebrate the site’s 20th anniversary, we present: The InsideHook Guide to YouTube, a series of creator profiles, channel recommendations and deep dives about the viral, controversial, unstoppable video-sharing giant.

Not all YouTube cocktail channels are created equal. If done wrong, your pint of Old Fashioned with invisible bitters will go viral, and not in a good way.

But the site is also full of real bartenders who can not only show you how to make your favorite drinks but also offer up cocktail history, glassware suggestions and riffs on boozy classics. If you know what you’re looking for and can find some trusted sources, YouTube essentially serves as a free master class in home bartending, hosted by an array of affable drinks pros.

We’ve got a separate guide to whiskey YouTube coming soon, but the channels below offer knowledge geared towards those of us who would rather figure out how to make a great Sazerac riff at home or discover if the latest social media cocktail trend is worth your time and palate (surprisingly, based on videos we’ve watched from the bartenders below, the answer is yes).

Drinks Culture

Best Channel: How to Drink

Here’s how host Greg Titian describes his channel, which has over 1.7 million followers and posts new videos every Friday: “We’ve got classic cocktails, we’ve got Prohibition cocktails, we’ve got tiki cocktails, we’ve got new original cocktails. There are movie cocktails, TV cocktails, video game cocktails, good cocktails and bad cocktails.” Interestingly enough, Titian has never worked in a bar, but his mixture of cocktail and pop culture knowledge makes for a beguiling viewing experience — especially for a fellow drinks fan and nerd like me, who absolutely wants to know how to make drinks inspired by Fallout.

Start Here: “Rolling Dice for Drinks With Matt Colville,” where Titian makes a Last Word-style drink using Dungeons & Dragons rules and random dice rolls.

Cocktail Recipes

Best Channel: Steve the Bartender

Affable Aussie Steven Roennfeldt founded a mobile cocktail bartending business in 2012 and his namesake YouTube channel, which has subsequently amassed nearly 83 million views, in 2015. Roennfeldt, who is also a drinks author, specializes in easy-to-make cocktails and crowd-pleasing tipples (one of his recent videos is literally “20 Most Popular Cocktails on the Internet”), presented in a bright, no-fuss manner. And it’s not only drinks recipes — Steve discusses cocktail-making techniques, bar tools, drinks gift ideas and even his own recent heart surgery.

Start Here: “Oaxaca Old Fashioned Cocktail Recipe,” a personal favorite drink of mine.

Drinks Listicles

Best Channel: The Educated Barfly

Hosted by bartender Leandro DiMonriva, you can certainly use The Educated Barfly as a completist’s cocktail recipe guide. But where the channel really shines is its preference for informative and occasionally argument-starting lists — the best bourbon for $20, seven cocktails your bartender hates to make, three Martinis you haven’t tried (but should), and so on. With over 1,100 videos, DiMonriva isn’t afraid to undertake some deep dives: He’ll touch on Gentian liqueur, fat-washing whiskey with chili peppers, and viral cocktail sensations like the Sushi Rice Negroni (which he doesn’t love but respects).

Start Here: “50 Cocktails You Need to Know! (How to Be a Better Bartender)” — one of the most popular videos on the channel: 50 call drinks presented in under 30 minutes.

The InsideHook Guide to YouTube

For YouTube’s 20th anniversary, we’re profiling creators, recommending channels and dissecting the viral, controversial, unstoppable video-sharing giant

Cocktail Hacks

Best Channel: Truffles on the Rocks

A Quebec-based channel that documents the favorite drink recipes (and, on an adjoining blog, food recipes) from a French-Canadian named Jean-Félix — who admits, due to his background, that you’ll occasionally find “some unusual kind of phrasing.” As someone who doesn’t always love to follow the established rules for cocktails, Jean-Félix’s tips here are both real time-savers (see: pre-batched Mojitos) and unexpectedly delicious, especially when he’s riffing on Black Manhattans, Trinidad Sours, Old Fashioneds (one done eggnog style) and more.

Start Here: “The Batanga AKA Tequila and Coke…But Better,” a funky and possibly historically accurate take on a classic tequila drink, helped by a spicy cilantro infusion inspired by guacamole.

Drinks History

Best Channel: Behind the Bar

Cara Devine, the bar manager at Melbourne’s Bomba Rooftop, calls her channel Behind the Bar a “safe space” for bartenders new to the industry. So there are a lot of cocktail recipes (daiquiris, Sazeracs, etc.) here and cocktail hacks (“Boozy Fridge Friends”), but you’ll also get to learn more about the stories behind your favorite booze and take a deep dive into historical cocktails. Oh, and given that Devine is an Aussie, you’ll also find some unique drink recipes more familiar to her part of the world (the Boozy Spider sounds awesome).

Start Here: “All About Gin! Everything You Need to Know” — you’ll never think about Old Tom gin the same way again.

Behind the Bar’s Favorite Channel: “I’d have to go for another local hero (to Australia anyway, he’s in Adelaide and I’m in Melbourne), Steve the Bartender. He’s been doing this for a long time, before the boom in YouTube drinks content, so his back catalog is great — you can find literally every cocktail you ever need on there. And he’s just a lovely guy and makes delicious gin as well.” — Cara Devine

Useful Bar Tips

Best Channel: Anders Erickson

A drinks professional for over two decades, Chicago’s Anders Erickson creates densely informative clips full of gorgeous, slo-mo close-ups of cocktail making, coupled with an encyclopedic knowledge of each drink’s background (I didn’t know I needed an entire video on the Revolver, a coffee cocktail for bourbon lovers, until I watched this). But go outside the cocktails and you’ll find some incredibly useful home bar tips, from shopping on a budget to picking out the right glassware.

Start Here: “How to Mix a Drink – Are You Doing It Wrong?” — the ultimate guide to shaking and stirring.