Cocktail Wars Episode 7 Recipes: Elemental Drinks

Cocktail Wars episode 7 recipes came out of the most technical night of the season. The theme was the elements, and the show worked through them in order: water first, then air, then earth. Three mixologists, three challenges, one elimination after the second round, and $10,000 on the line for whoever was still pouring at the end. Joey Fatone and Lance Bass host, master mixologist Melissa Brooke handles the technical scoring, and the guest judge was Rachel Maddow. E! lists the episode as All The Cocktails while the official recipe page files it under the theme Elemental Cocktails. Below is the full Cocktail Wars episode 7 recap plus all eight drinks, each with a one-tap link that saves it straight to your Velvet Shelf account.

Every spec below is copied from the official episode 7 recipe page at cocktailwars.com, so the measurements are exactly what the mixologists poured on camera. Nothing has been rounded, converted or improved, and where the page prints an ingredient with no measurement, we have left it blank rather than guess. Save any of these and the cocktail lands in your bar with cocktailwars.com credited as the source.

Who competed on Cocktail Wars episode 7?

Jena Ellenwood, Natasha Velasquez and Avery Norris competed on Cocktail Wars episode 7. Ellenwood won the first challenge, won the second, and closed the night as episode winner, sweeping all three rounds. Velasquez was the one still at the rail for the final head to head. Norris did not return for the third challenge, which is where this format puts its single elimination.

The official recipe page publishes no contestant bios, so the clearest read on the three of them is what they reached for under pressure. Ellenwood built like someone who has spent time with equipment: saline measured at ten parts salt to one, a stir counted out to thirteen, a cream whipper used twice in one night for two different jobs. Velasquez worked the crowd-pleasing end of the room with egg white, boba pearls and a bubble machine. Norris kept things short and classical, which was the right instinct in round one and not quite enough in round two.

Challenge 1: The Versatility of Water

The first impression challenge handed all three mixologists the same base spirit, Jack Daniel's Old No. 7, and asked them to make water the interesting part. That is harder than it sounds. Water works as dilution, as carbonation, as the ice itself and as the saline that sharpens everything else, and most of those jobs are invisible when done well. Ellenwood took the round.

Here We Go Highball (Jena Ellenwood)

The round one winner, and the drink that answered the brief most directly: carbonated water, an ice spear and four dashes of saline, with every one of those doing a different job. The garnish is a small piece of construction work, two honey-dotted banana chips closed around a roasted peanut and set firm in the fridge. The official page gives no measurement for the carbonated water.

Glass: Highball glass
Garnish: Banana chips, roasted peanuts and honey

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ oz Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey
• ½ oz Bols Crème de Banana
• ¼ oz Bénédictine Herbal Liqueur
• 3 dashes Fee Brothers Black Walnut Bitters
• 4 dashes Saline Solution (10-part salt / 1 part water)
• Icelandic Glacial Carbonated Water

Method

Build in highball glass with ice spear; stir 13 times. Lay banana chips flat with honey dots, place roasted peanut in center, sandwich with second honey-dotted chip, refrigerate to set.

Save Here We Go Highball to your Velvet Shelf account

Spicy Mamacita (Natasha Velasquez)

A whiskey sour with habanero bitters running underneath it and amaretto rounding off the heat. The egg white is there for texture, but it also softens the habanero, which is why this drinks warmer than it sounds on paper. Torching the dried pineapple caramelizes the sugar and gives the chili something to stick to.

Garnish: Torched dried pineapple and chili pepper

Ingredients

• 2 oz Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers Habanero Bitters
• ¼ oz Simple Syrup
• ¾ oz Pineapple Juice
• ½ oz fresh lemon juice
• ½ oz Amaretto Fratelli D'Italia
• 1 egg white

Method

Add all ingredients in shaker, shake and strain into glass. Garnish with torched dried pineapple coated in chili pepper.

Save Spicy Mamacita to your Velvet Shelf account

Spin on a Classic Julep (Avery Norris)

Four ingredients and the shortest build of the night. Norris took the water brief literally, pouring a full ounce of still water into the shaker rather than letting ice do the diluting, which gives you exact control over the dilution. Peach nectar stands in for the sugar a julep would normally carry.

Garnish: Lemon wheel and mint

Ingredients

• 2 oz Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey
• Dash Lemon Zest
• 1 oz Jumex Peach Nectar
• 1 oz Icelandic Glacial Water

Method

Combine all ingredients in shaker and strain. Garnish with lemon wheel and mint.

Save Spin on a Classic Julep to your Velvet Shelf account

Challenge 2: Tiny Bubbles

Round two moved from water to air, with gin as the common base and carbonation as the skill being tested. Bubbles are unforgiving. A cream whipper will carbonate a cocktail beautifully or foam it into nothing depending on how cold the liquid is and how you release the pressure, and every gram of sugar or solids in the mix changes the answer. Ellenwood took this round too, which is what put her into the final.

The Silly Goose (Jena Ellenwood)

The round two winner and the best idea of the night: a carbonated dirty martini, stirred down for a full forty seconds so it is properly cold before it ever meets the canister. Fino sherry alongside the dry vermouth keeps it savory without turning it into pure brine. On the official page the olives and lemon twist are printed inside the ingredient list rather than on a separate garnish line.

Glass: Champagne flute
Garnish: Filthy Pickle Mini Gherkin Stuffed Olives and lemon twist

Ingredients

• ½ oz Filthy Olive Brine
• 1 oz Tio Pepe/Gonzalez Byass Fino Sherry
• 1 oz Cinzano Vermouth Extra Dry
• 1 ½ oz Fords Gin
• Dash Brine from the Filthy Pickle Mini Gherkin Stuffed Olives

Method

Build in mixing glass with ice, stir 40 seconds, pour into ISI canister. Double charge and siphon into chilled champagne flutes. Express lemon twist over top and discard. Garnish with lemon twist wrapped around pickle stuffed olive.

Save The Silly Goose to your Velvet Shelf account

The Girly Pop (Natasha Velasquez)

Velasquez read the bubbles brief three ways at once: champagne for the carbonation, boba pearls for the texture and an actual smoke-filled bubble floated on top. The official page prints the boba pearls and the champagne inside the method rather than the ingredient list, with measurements attached, so both appear above with the measures exactly as published.

Garnish: Orange blossom water sprayed on top, finished with a Flavor Blaster bubble

Ingredients

• 1½ oz Ford's Gin
• ½ oz fresh lemon juice
• ½ oz strawberry purée
• ¼ oz Monin Rose Syrup
• ¼ oz simple syrup
• 4 to 6 strawberry boba pearls
• 1½ oz Lanson Le Rosé Champagne

Method

Combine ingredients in shaker, strain into glass. Add 4 to 6 strawberry boba pearls. Finish with 1 1/2 oz Lanson Le Rose Champagne. Spray orange blossom water on top and use a Flavor Blaster to garnish with a bubble.

Save The Girly Pop to your Velvet Shelf account

Yuzu Foam Gin Sour (Avery Norris)

A clean gin sour with Chambord for color and a separate yuzu and coconut foam built in the cream whipper. Xanthan gum is the part worth copying: a bar spoon is enough to hold a foam stable for the length of a drink instead of letting it collapse in a minute. The official page lists the foam components without a measurement for the coconut cream.

Ingredients

• 2 oz Fords Gin
• .5 oz Chambord
• 1 oz Lime Juice
• 1 oz Simple Syrup
• Simply Squeeze/Reàl Infused Exotics Coconut Cream (foam)
• 2 parts to 1 part water Monin Yuzu Purée (foam)
• Bar spoon Xanthan Gum (foam)

Method

Combine ingredients in shaker, shake and strain into glass. Make foam in ISI. Top cocktail with foam.

Save Yuzu Foam Gin Sour to your Velvet Shelf account

Challenge 3: Cocktails From the Earth

The final round swapped gin for Tequila Herradura Reposado and asked the last two standing for something that tasted like it came out of the ground. Root vegetables and a reposado that has already spent time in oak give you plenty of ways to make a drink taste muddy. Ellenwood went into the soil. Velasquez went up into the flowers.

Root Cause (Jena Ellenwood)

The episode winner, and the second time Ellenwood used the cream whipper for something other than bubbles. Here the canister is a rapid infuser: beet and ginger cubed into the tequila, double charged, then released slowly so the pressure drop pulls color and flavor out of the vegetable in minutes instead of days. The official page prints no measurements for the beet, the ginger or the saline, though the method calls for one beet and one ginger.

Glass: Coupe glass
Garnish: Ginger candy, lemon zest, smoked chili salt and granulated sugar

Ingredients

• 2 oz Tequila Herradura Reposado
• Beet
• Ginger
• ¾ oz Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur
• 1 oz Lemon juice
• Saline solution
• Bar spoon honey syrup (3:1 honey to water)

Method

Peel and cube 1 beet and 1 ginger. Place in ISI canister with tequila, shake to combine, double charge. Hold over mixing glass and release air slowly while pouring. In shaker tin, combine all ingredients with ice, shake 20 sec, strain into chilled coupe glass. Combine smoked chili salt with lemon zest. Roll crystallized ginger candy in mixture for garnish.

Save Root Cause to your Velvet Shelf account

Coco Loco (Natasha Velasquez)

The runner-up drink and the longest ingredient list of the night at nine lines. Lavender and coconut cream over a reposado reads more like a garden than a root cellar, which was the gamble. Egg white plus coconut cream gives a very thick texture, so this one needs a hard shake.

Garnish: Torched coconut flakes, lavender and lemon wheel

Ingredients

• 2 oz Tequila Herradura Reposado
• ½ oz Monin Lavender Syrup
• ¾ oz Lemon Juice
• ½ oz Simply Squeeze/Reàl Infused Exotics Coconut Cream
• ¼ oz Triple Sec
• ¼ oz Simple Syrup
• 1 egg white
• ½ oz pineapple juice
• 2 dashes Fee Brothers Orange Bitters

Method

Combine all ingredients in shaker, shake and strain. Garnish with torched coconut flakes, lavender, and lemon wheel.

Save Coco Loco to your Velvet Shelf account

How the episode played out

Ellenwood led from the first pour and never gave the lead back. The Versatility of Water went to the Here We Go Highball, a Jack Daniel's build where carbonated water, an ice spear and four dashes of saline each handled a different part of the job. Velasquez countered with habanero bitters and egg white, Norris with a stripped-back julep carrying a full ounce of still water. The round rewarded the drink that treated water as an ingredient rather than a delivery system.

Tiny Bubbles decided the finalists. Ellenwood stirred The Silly Goose for a full forty seconds before it went anywhere near the canister, and a carbonated dirty martini with fino sherry in it is an odd idea that works. Velasquez answered with champagne, boba and a smoke-filled bubble. Norris built the most classical drink of the three, a gin sour under a yuzu and coconut foam, and did not return for the final.

That left Ellenwood and Velasquez for Cocktails From the Earth, with Herradura Reposado as the base. Velasquez reached upward into lavender, coconut cream and torched flakes. Ellenwood went down into the root, cubing beet and ginger into the tequila and rapid-infusing the whole thing under pressure in the same canister she had used for bubbles an hour earlier. Root Cause took the night, and the sweep.

Three techniques worth stealing from episode 7

Keep a saline solution on your bar. The Here We Go Highball calls for four dashes of a ten to one salt and water mix, and that ratio is the useful part. Salt in solution disperses evenly through a cold drink where a pinch of dry salt will not, lifting fruit and cutting bitterness. Mix a small dropper bottle and it keeps for months.

Use your cream whipper as an infuser, not just a foamer. Root Cause puts cubed beet and ginger into the canister with the tequila, double charges it, then releases the pressure slowly. Gas forces its way into the plant cells and the sudden drop pulls flavor and color out as it escapes, turning an overnight infusion into a two minute one.

Chill hard before you carbonate. The Silly Goose is stirred forty seconds over ice before it reaches the canister. Cold liquid holds dissolved gas and warm liquid throws it back the moment you open the valve, so the stir is the difference between a sparkling cocktail and a sticky mess on your ceiling.

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. Short a bottle of Benedictine, or a jar of Filthy olives? The Barkeep will tell you what to swap. Cocktail Wars airs Tuesdays at 10 on E!, and we do this every week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won Cocktail Wars episode 7?

Jena Ellenwood won Cocktail Wars episode 7 with Root Cause, a Herradura Reposado drink rapid-infused with beet and ginger in a cream whipper and finished with ginger liqueur and honey syrup. She swept all three rounds. Natasha Velasquez was runner-up, and Avery Norris did not compete in the final round.

Who was the guest judge on Cocktail Wars episode 7?

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC was the guest judge on Cocktail Wars episode 7, which E! lists under the title All The Cocktails. She joined hosts Joey Fatone and Lance Bass and resident mixology expert Melissa Brooke for an episode built around the elements of water, air and earth.

How do you carbonate a cocktail at home with a cream whipper?

Stir the drink over ice until it is properly cold, then pour it into an ISI canister, charge it twice with CO2 and let it rest before siphoning into a chilled glass. Cold liquid holds gas and warm liquid releases it violently, so the chill matters more than the charge.

What is saline solution in a cocktail?

Saline solution is salt dissolved in water, mixed on Cocktail Wars episode 7 at ten parts salt to one part water and used by the dash. Dissolved salt disperses through a cold drink evenly, where dry salt will not, and a few dashes brighten fruit and soften bitterness.