Jolly Rancher Shots: Candy in drink form

If you love jolly rancher candies then you must try these super fun jolly rancher shots. With only three ingredients you can be drinking the flavor of your favorite candy in no time.

Jump to:

• What is a Jolly Rancher Shot?
• Equipment
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Variations
• Mixing Tips
• Recipe
• Mixing Tips

What is a Jolly Rancher Shot?

Jolly rancher shots are a combination of vodka, sweet and sour mix and then watermelon pucker, apple schnapps or pucker, raspberry schnapps, or grape schnapps depending on what flavor jolly rancher you want to make.

Not only do the resulting shots taste just like your favorite flavor of jolly rancher, they all come in a variety of bright colors as well.

Vodka is a clear liquor. It is made of grains such as rye or even potatoes that are fermented and then distilled. The resulting liquor is typically pretty neutral and flavor. This works well when adding it into drinks or you want the other ingredients to shine.

The various different fruit flavored puckers and schnapps are infused with whatever fruit they are named after. Typically a pucker has a bit of a sour flavor while a schnapps is a little sweeter. Both puckers and schnapps have a neutral base spirit which provides the alcohol content.

Sour mix is made by combining a citrus juice, typically lemon, but sometimes lime with a sweetener such as sugar or simple syrup. You can purchase this pre-made at the store or make it at home. Store version tends to be a bright neon yellow color and have a less fresh flavor.

Occasions to make this shot

With their bright colors and fun candy flavor, these shots are well suited for a variety of occasions including:

• birthday parties
• holiday celebrations
• pool parties and barbecues
• movie nights

Similar shots include: sweet tart shot, swedish fish shot or tic tac shot.

Equipment

• Shot glasses
• jigger
• cocktail shaker
• Hawthorne strainer

Ingredients

• 1 oz Vodka
• 1 oz Watermelon Pucker or Apple Schnapps or Raspberry Schnapps or Grape Schnapps
• .5 oz Sweet and sour mix
• Ice

Instructions

If you’re only making one flavor shot, you can toss this up pretty easily in 3 minutes or less. If you’re looking to make multiple shot flavors, you’re going to need a little more time since you have to mix each one up separately.

Step one

Get started by making sure you have everything needed to make this shot including shot glass, shaker, hawthorn strainer, jigger, ice, vodka, sour mix and whichever flavored pucker and schnapps you want to use.

Step two

Pick up your ice and toss it into your cocktail shaker. The shaker should be mostly filled with ice.

Step three

Using your jigger measure out 1 oz of vodka. Toss your vodka into the shaker with the ice.

Step four

Decide what flavor shot you would like to make. Pick up that flavor pucker or schnapps and measure out 1 oz with your jigger. Toss that into the shaker with the vodka and ice.

Note: If you want to make multiple different flavored shots, you’ll have to do each one separately. So, you’ll need to go through this set of instructions for each pucker or schnapps used.

Step Five

Using your jigger measure out 0.5 oz of sour mix. Toss that into the shaker with the other ingredients.

Step six

Stick the lid over top of the shaker and shake it well. This should take around 15 seconds or so or until the outside of the shaker is icy and cold to touch it.

Step seven

Pop the shaker lid off. Place your Hawthorne strainer over top of the shaker. Then, strain your drink from the shaker into your shot glass. Enjoy!

Variations

Here are a few different ways to change these shots up:

• Watermelon jolly rancher: to get a watermelon flavored jolly rancher shot, use watermelon pucker.
• Green apple jolly rancher. To get a green apple flavored jolly rancher shop, use apple schnapps or apple pucker.
• Raspberry jolly rancher shot. To get a blue raspberry flavored jolly rancher, use raspberry schnapps. If you want to add the blue color, add a dash of blue curacao.
• Grape jolly rancher shot. To get a grape flavored jolly rancher, use grape schnapps.
• Use jolly rancher infused vodka. You can make your own jolly rancher flavored vodka by soaking jolly ranchers in your vodka. Then, just add a dash of sour mix or lemon lime soda to top your shot glass off.

Mixing Tips

• Shake well. The shaking step not only mixes your ingredients, but also chills the drink. Make sure to shake until the shaker is cold on the outside.
• Clean the shaker. If you are making multiple flavors, make sure to rinse the shaker and jigger between each so they don’t get messy.
• Make in batch. Easily make more than one shot of each flavor by multiplying the ingredients by double or triple.

Recipe