Cocktail Wars Episode 2 Recipes: Every Vacation Cocktail
Cocktail Wars episode 2 recipes are the reason this recap exists, so let's get the format out of the way fast. Three mixologists, three escalating challenges, one goes home after round two, and the last one standing takes $10,000. Joey Fatone and Lance Bass host and judge, master mixologist Melissa Brooke keeps the scoring honest, and this week's guest judge was Real Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga, a self-declared Cosmo queen and island girl. The theme was vacation drinks. Below is the full Cocktail Wars episode 2 recap plus every cocktail from the episode, each with a one-tap link to save it to your Velvet Shelf account.
Every spec below comes straight from the official episode 2 recipe page at cocktailwars.com, so the measurements are exactly what the competitors poured. Save any of them and the recipe lands in your bar with cocktailwars.com credited as the source.
Who competed on Cocktail Wars episode 2?
Tyler Kent, 41, from Brooklyn by way of the San Francisco Bay Area, came in wanting to make drinks that surprise people, and he said the word "win" more than anyone else on the episode. Amy Giarrusso grew up in Totowa, New Jersey, and works a bar famous for Guinness and Jameson shots, which she offered as proof she can throw a drink together under pressure. Hector Sam-Roman, 37, from Jersey City, admitted he might be a little starstruck making cocktails for two members of NSYNC.
Three Jersey connections at one bar, counting the guest judge, and Melissa Gorga made sure the hosts knew it.
Round 1: Tropical drinks for a first impression
Ten minutes to make a tropical cocktail that puts the judges in a vacation mood. Melissa Brooke's verdict on the three: Tyler's green Chartreuse was fantastic, Amy's was a delicious glass of juice but not very creative, and Hector's cream-charger infusion made for the most layered drink of the round. Hector took it, Tyler placed second.
Hoboken Rooftop (Tyler Kent)
Tyler's split-base sour: rum and pisco underneath, green Chartreuse for the herbal kick, and creme de cacao doing the sweetening so there is no plain syrup anywhere in the glass. Joey's review: one of these is a relaxing vacation, seventeen is a different kind of trip.
Glass: Rocks glass with a chili salt rim
Garnish: None
Ingredients
- 1 oz Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva
- 1 oz Pisco
- 3/4 oz Lime juice
- 1/2 oz Pineapple juice
- 1/2 oz Green Chartreuse
- 1/4 oz White creme de cacao
- As needed Chili salt (sea salt, chili flakes, lime zest)
Method
Rim a rocks glass with chili salt. Add the ingredients to a shaker with large-cube ice and shake until frosty. Double strain over decorative ice.
Save Hoboken Rooftop to your Velvet Shelf account
Aruba Sunset (Amy Giarrusso)
A classic Cosmo with orange vodka swapped in for the citrus lift. Only the girl gets the umbrella, Amy told the hosts. The judges liked it and wanted more risk.
Glass: Chilled martini glass
Garnish: Orange peel, expressed and dropped in
Ingredients
- 2 oz Deep Eddy Orange Vodka
- 1 oz Bols Triple Sec
- 1 oz Cranberry juice
- 1/2 oz Lime juice
Method
Chill a martini glass. Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake 15 to 20 seconds. Strain into the chilled glass and garnish with the orange peel.
Save Aruba Sunset to your Velvet Shelf account
Hangin' on Cruises (Hector Sam-Roman)
The round winner. Hector rapid-infused cachaca with lemongrass and dehydrated orange in a cream charger, then layered in Calvados for apple and a splash of blue to signal vacation. Melissa Brooke called using cachaca brilliant and was surprised how much he built in ten minutes.
Glass: Chilled glass
Garnish: Mango boba pearls
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz Lemongrass-infused cachaca
- 1/2 oz Pineapple vodka
- 3/4 oz Yuzu juice
- 1/4 oz Calvados
- 1/2 oz Dragon fruit syrup
- As needed Mango boba pearls
Method
Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Double strain into a chilled glass and finish with the boba pearls.
Save Hangin' on Cruises to your Velvet Shelf account
Round 2: Stencil art on a vacation cocktail
Melissa Brooke's skills challenge was cocktail art, specifically stenciling a design onto the surface of the drink. Twenty minutes, a vacation theme, and a stencil each: Hector chose a heart with three roses, Tyler a snowflake, Amy a flamingo. Amy had never stenciled a drink in her life, lifted her first attempt to find a blob, then figured out the trick: hold the stencil just above the foam instead of resting it on the drink.
Matcha North Star (Tyler Kent)
The round winner and the drink that sent Tyler to the final. A flip is a rich, whole-egg cocktail almost nobody keeps in their back pocket, and Tyler built one that tastes like apres-ski in Lake Tahoe. Lance called it a grower, not a shower, and meant it as a compliment.
Glass: Chilled coupe
Garnish: Matcha powder dusting through a stencil
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 oz Woodford Reserve Double Oaked Bourbon
- 1/2 oz Oloroso sherry
- 1/2 oz Demerara syrup
- 3/4 oz Matcha creme
- 1 Whole egg
Method
Dry shake all ingredients without ice. Add large-cube ice and shake until frosty. Double strain into a chilled coupe and dust matcha powder over the stencil.
Save Matcha North Star to your Velvet Shelf account
Night Cap (Amy Giarrusso)
Amy's espresso martini, named for the way her friends end every night out. All three judges agreed it was the best stencil of the round by far. Melissa Gorga's only note: where are the three beans? Amy ran out of time.
Glass: Chilled martini glass
Garnish: Ground cinnamon stenciled as a flamingo
Ingredients
- 2 oz Tito's Vodka
- 1 oz Cafe Bustelo Espresso Coffee
- 1/2 oz Black Irish Irish Cream
- 1/2 oz Frangelico
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla extract
- 2 to 3 dashes Fee Brothers Fee Foam
Method
Chill a martini glass. Add the ingredients to a shaker three-quarters full of ice and shake 15 to 20 seconds. Strain into the glass and dust cinnamon through the stencil.
Save Night Cap to your Velvet Shelf account
Made with Love (Hector Sam-Roman)
A Cosmo crossed with a pornstar martini, built for a guest judge who loves the former. The judges thought the flavor was the most vacation of the three and gave the stencil a 10 out of 10 for difficulty, but the strawberry powder clumped and the hearts never showed. That cost Hector the episode.
Glass: Chilled glass
Garnish: Dehydrated strawberries
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz Dehydrated-orange-infused Tito's Vodka
- 3/4 oz Triple sec
- 1/2 oz Monin Passion Fruit Syrup
- 1/4 oz Lime juice
Method
Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake hard. Double strain into a chilled glass and garnish with dehydrated strawberries.
Save Made with Love to your Velvet Shelf account
Final: A cocktail that brings you back to your best vacation
For the final, the last two closed their eyes and pictured the best vacation they ever took, then had 30 minutes to put that memory in a glass, the way Renaissance Hotels build drinks around local ingredients and culture. Tyler's round-two win bought him a five-minute head start.
Almond Sail Away (Tyler Kent)
The $10,000 winner. Tyler built it around sail-away day on a cruise with his best friend: a drink in hand at the railing as the ship pulls out. Melissa Brooke called it perfectly balanced, and Joey pointed out it turned Melissa Gorga into a gin drinker in a single sip. Tyler paired it with a vanilla almond cookie.
Glass: Chilled coupe
Garnish: Orange peel and edible gold glitter
Ingredients
- 2 oz Ford's Gin
- 1 oz Orange juice
- 3/4 oz Orgeat
- 2 dashes Aromatic bitters
- 1 barspoon Citric acid solution
- 1 Egg white
Method
Combine everything except the egg white, taste and adjust the tartness. Add the egg white and dry shake. Add ice and shake until frosty. Double strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with the orange peel.
Save Almond Sail Away to your Velvet Shelf account
Best Friends' Night Out (Amy Giarrusso)
A pineapple margarita for a girls' trip to Aruba, with a glittery salt rim for the Jersey girls at the judges' table. The judges loved it and said it played safe. Melissa Gorga sent Amy home with sprinkle cookies so the runner-up did not leave empty-handed.
Glass: Rocks glass with a lime and edible glitter salt rim
Garnish: Dehydrated orange slice
Ingredients
- 2 oz Flecha Azul Blanco Tequila
- 3/4 oz Bols Triple Sec
- 1 oz Monin Pineapple Syrup
- 3/4 oz Fresh lime juice
- As needed Edible glitter salt
Method
Rim the glass with lime and edible glitter salt. Add the tequila, triple sec, pineapple syrup and lime juice to a shaker with ice and shake 10 to 15 seconds. Strain over fresh ice and garnish with the dehydrated orange.
Save Best Friends' Night Out to your Velvet Shelf account
How the judging went
Round one went to Hector on the strength of the lemongrass infusion and the layering behind it. Round two was where the episode turned. The judges scored the stencil as half the challenge, and Amy's flamingo was the clear winner on that front, while Hector's drink tasted the most like a vacation and his stencil never came through. Tyler split the difference with a clean snowflake on a flip the judges kept going back to, and he took the round. Hector went home after what Joey described as arguing, yelling and debating, because the flavors were fantastic and the stencil simply did not land.
The final was a matchup of two different technical levels, as Melissa Brooke put it: Amy's pineapple margarita was beautiful and safe, and Tyler's gin sour was not especially complex if you know the ingredients, just perfectly balanced. Tyler won the $10,000 and said he plans to spend it on a vacation with the best friend who inspired the drink.
Three techniques worth stealing from episode 2
Stencil above the foam, not on it. Amy's first attempt smeared because the stencil sat on the surface. Holding it a few millimeters above the drink and dusting from higher up gave a crisp flamingo. The same applies to matcha, cocoa and cinnamon.
Skip fruit powders for stencil work. Both Hector and Amy found that freeze-dried strawberry powder clumps the moment it touches moisture. Fine, dry powders like matcha and cinnamon hold their edges.
Use a cream charger for ten-minute infusions. Hector loaded cachaca, lemongrass and dehydrated orange into an iSi whipper, charged it, and had a finished infusion in minutes. It works with any spirit and any dry aromatic, and it is the fastest way to give a competition drink a signature.
Save the whole episode to your shelf
Every recipe above has its own save link, the same kind we drop in the comments on Instagram. Tap it, sign in, and the cocktail lands in your favorites with the ingredients checked against your bar. Missing the orgeat or the dragon fruit syrup? The Barkeep will tell you what to swap. Cocktail Wars airs Tuesdays at 10 on E!, and we will be doing this every week.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won Cocktail Wars episode 2?
Tyler Kent, a Brooklyn bartender who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, won Cocktail Wars episode 2 and the $10,000 prize with the Almond Sail Away, a gin sour built on orange juice, orgeat, aromatic bitters and egg white. Amy Giarrusso was the runner-up and Hector Sam-Roman was eliminated after the stencil challenge.
Who was the guest judge on Cocktail Wars episode 2?
Melissa Gorga from The Real Housewives of New Jersey was the guest judge on Cocktail Wars episode 2. She joined hosts Joey Fatone and Lance Bass and resident cocktail expert Melissa Brooke for the vacation-drinks episode, which aired on E!.
How do you stencil a design on a cocktail?
Build the drink with a foam top, from egg white or a foaming agent, so the powder has a surface to sit on. Hold the stencil a few millimeters above the foam rather than resting it on the drink, dust a fine dry powder such as matcha, cocoa or cinnamon through it, then lift straight up. Fruit powders clump and blur the design.
What is a flip cocktail?
A flip is a rich, dessert-style cocktail shaken with a whole egg, which gives it a silky, custard-like texture. Tyler Kent's Matcha North Star on Cocktail Wars episode 2 is a modern flip: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Oloroso sherry, demerara syrup, matcha creme and one whole egg, dry shaken and then shaken again with ice.