It may seem odd for Guinness—a deep, dark, robust stout—to play a key role in the latest crop of refreshing summer drinks. But bartenders say its creamy texture and bitter-chocolate flavor add just the right counterpoint to a wide range of cocktails, and it’s showing up in surprising ways.
For Taylor Yale, a bartender at Hartley’s in Brooklyn, New York, the inspiration for the Guinn & Tonic was an espresso tonic spotted in a coffee shop. “I said, That kind of looks like Guinness.”
At the fairly traditional Irish pub—not a cocktail bar—Yale originally received some pushback about offering a Guinness-based cocktail. “That’s sacrilegious,” she recalls the manager protesting. In response, she offered the drink on a “secret menu,” hand-selling the drink customer by customer, often likening the mix of Amaro Montenegro, cava, Guinness and tonic water to a root beer float.
“The orange and chocolate notes of Montenegro go with Guinness, which is chocolatey and malty,” Yale explains. The equal-parts Champagne-and-Guinness classic Black Velvet was another reference point; after rejecting prosecco, which read as too sweet, Yale found that a long pull of the stout mixed with about an ounce of drier cava yielded a pleasingly creamy top. A squeeze of fresh orange accents the amaro and adds a pop of color to the otherwise brown and brooding drink.
That was last summer. In May 2025, Guinn & Tonics outsold classic Old-Fashioneds.
The 2024 trend of splitting the G has been a key driver of the latest wave of Guinness cocktails, raising the profile of the Irish stout among younger consumers and bringing it into the mainstream. This newfound familiarity has also meant a greater willingness to take Guinness-based drinks for a spin.
Of course, cocktails made with the quintessential Irish stout seem a natural match for Irish-leaning bars. (See: The Dead Rabbit’s Twilight Zone, a Whiskey Sour riff made with Irish whiskey, lemon and a honey-cassis mix, frothed with an ounce of Guinness instead of egg white.) But it’s appearing at mainstream cocktail bars too—in part because of what the stout brings to drinks.
For example, at New York City’s Bar Snack, the Split Ends has been the top seller since opening in November 2024. “We clear 700 a month,” confirms co-owner Iain Griffiths of the Whiskey Sour-esque drink, which is flash-blended with Irish whiskey, Cardamaro, lemon juice and fresh raspberry, then topped with two ounces of frothy, fresh-pulled Guinness and the oils from a twist of lemon peel.
“I think the bartenders are almost disappointed,” when they hear about how it’s made, Griffiths jokes. “They’re waiting for the magic moment” of a fancy bar technique, but it’s the “off-the-shelf ingredient,” Guinness, that pulls the drink together in a special way.
The Split Ends takes inspiration from the Dog’s Nose, a 19th-century English drink made with gin, brown sugar and either porter or stout—“unquestionably a bathtub-era drink, doing everything to mask the flavor of the gin,” says Griffiths. While the bar has a strong Irish contingent (blame the nearby Swift Hibernian Lounge) that orders the drink, its popularity is also due to the familiar flavors that Guinness provides. “Everyone has a different reference: cake, chocolate, different random smells. Everyone has their own sense memory they can find in there.”
Beyond the fresh and frothy, bar pros also find inspiration in the stout’s deep, dark flavors. Grand Army, also in Brooklyn, used a housemade Guinness syrup to add richness to a mix of Branca Menta and mezcal in its Willy’s Wonderland cocktail, while Passing Fancies in Birmingham, U.K., calls for “Guinness caramel” in the Short & Stout.
But perhaps the ultimate expression is a full-on Guinness cocktail menu, which ran in late 2024 at Bangkok’s Tax Bar, around the peak of the splitting the G trend. From the six-drink menu, the two best-sellers were the Guinnespresso Martini (half Guinness, half Espresso Martini) and the Dublin Sour, made with Guinness, Irish whiskey, “stout syrup,” egg white and lime. (Note: In May, the bar switched its themed menu, but the Guinness drinks are still available.)
While the cocktails act “as an introduction to Guinness for non-Guinness drinkers,” says Tax Bar proprietor and owner Niks Anuman-Rajadhon, the real impetus was, simply, enthusiasm for the iconic stout: “The inspiration was basically that we love Guinness so much and we want to see it in our favorite drinks.”
