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Your cocktail could use a little smoke. And that’s not to turn your drink into the taste of campfire, but to enhance the flavors already there.
“The idea with smoke on a cocktail is to allow the flavors of the liquid and the smoke to infuse one another — the longer you let them sit with each other the more their flavors get to play,” as NYC bartender Dan Stern, told us a few years back.
The Home Bartender’s Guide to Smoked Cocktails
How a smoking gun and some wood chips will change your drinking habitsAnd smoking cocktails isn’t that hard! There are plenty of kits available that have almost everything you need (with a few exceptions, you’ll have to pick up some butane). Most smoking kits contain a smoking gun, wood chips and a glass dome, and once you’ve tried it once, you’ll have a cocktail skill for life.
Below, we highlight some of our favorite cocktail smokers. Each one is a bit different, so be sure to read the descriptions and instructions before you start playing with fire.
Marcellin Smoking Cocktail Kit
This kit is about simplicity. Just set some wood chips on the base, light the chips with your torch until they start to smoke and cover it with the cloche for a few minutes to infuse. You’ll need to buy some butane for the lighter, but otherwise you’re set.
Breville BSM600SIL Smoking Gun Food Smoker
Who needs fire? Breville’s smoker adds natural cold smoke flavor and aroma to meat, fish, vegetables, sauces, and cocktails sans heat. It’s also more portable and lighter than other smokers, and it’s versatile, too — you can smoke with wood chips, tea, herbs, spices, hay or even dried flowers.
Aged & Charred Cocktail Smoker Kit (The Complete Kit)
Most cocktail smoker kits don’t include the butane, but this one from Aged & Charred does. The unique design of the oak lid here makes this ideal to fit multiple types of cocktail glasses.
Crafthouse by Fortessa
If you want a cocktail smoker that’ll sit proudly in your kitchen, Crafthouse’s variation is a looker: the glass cloche is paired with a rich black walnut base.
The Cocktail Chimney Kit
Forget the chips: This is the only cocktail smoker on the market that doesn’t require any additional fuel. You simply burn the wood of the cherry chimney itself to infuse your cocktail. Torch is included, but you’ll need to buy butane.
Smoke Boards Smoked Cocktail Kit
Bring your cocktail-smoking wizardry on the road with this well-reviewed portable kit, which includes a carrying case and three large containers of wood chips.
Oklahoma Joe’s Cocktail Smoking Box
What’s in the box? You’ll use a fuel tray to swap wood chips and pellets within the oak box, which hides the cocktail as it infuses (or does it? Perhaps it’s the Schrödinger’s cat of cocktail smokers.)
Homia Smoking Gun Wood Smoke Infuser
Another cold smoke infuser, this kit is pretty much all you’d ever need to do a cocktail (or food) smoking. It includes a smoking gun, flexible hose, disk lid, smoking lid, cocktail smoking ball and seven flavors of wood chips.
Gramercy Smoking Cocktail Kit
An interesting-looking portable option, this handheld smoking kit comes with wood chips and a downloadable recipe book.
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