14 Chocolate Garnishes to Elevate Your Sweet Cocktails

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While you may be familiar with some simple ways to garnish your cocktails, like adding a lemon twist, mint leaf, or spear of cocktail olives, dessert cocktail garnishes may be a little more foreign — particularly those that involve chocolate. Chocolate has a very heavy and dominant flavor. If used incorrectly, it can turn a well-balanced drink into a sugarfest, or completely obliterate the nuanced flavor profiles of the spirits and/or the other ingredients you add to the drink — you know, the ones you worked so hard to build. Yet, chocolate also has a ton of potential as a cocktail garnish, as it can invite nutty, complex, and complementary flavors into a whole host of sweet cocktails, from chocolate martinis to mudslides. Oh, and chocolate garnishes look pretty darn cool, too. 

In order to get some inspiration for how to garnish sweet cocktails with chocolate, we consulted two experts: Bridget Albert, host of the “Served Up” podcast and senior director of external communications at Southern Glazer’s, and Lisa Sawyer Derman, founder and CEO of Five Springs Infused Bourbon. Not only did they share tips for making and assembling the garnishes, but also how to best pair them with sweet cocktails.

Garnishes aren’t just added for color. Rather, they can help create dimension and texture on a dessert and/or cocktail. Chocolate curls are just one of many great examples. When you add them to the top of your cocktail, you’ll find that not only do they add a unique color and texture contrast, but they can also make your drink look taller and more elaborate. Bridget Albert, host of the “Served Up” podcast, recommends taking a vegetable peeler to your chocolate to create this whimsical garnish. 

The process is simple. Take a high-quality baking bar and let it sit out until it’s warm — but not melty and drippy. Then, push the peeler against the flat side of the bar to create the curls. Since the chocolate melts easily, it’s best to pick it up with a toothpick or tweezers to add it on top of your beverage. Shorter strokes will give you chocolate shavings, while longer ones will give you more precisely defined curls. These would be great for chocolate martinis, where you want a little more of a sophisticated garnish. 

One of the easiest ways to elevate the look of your sweet cocktail is to add a drizzle of chocolate to the inside of the glass before you serve it. “The look is lux and adds a flavor hit,” says Bridget Albert. This tip would be well-suited for frozen cocktails, like a mudslide,  a bushwacker, or a standard chocolate martini. 

You can use several different types of chocolate for this recipe, including dark, white, or milk, or opt for a chocolate sauce that you would use for ice cream. The most mess-free way to add your chocolate sauce is to use a squeeze bottle or transfer it to a piping bag. If you were to drizzle straight from the jar, it would come out more as a blob, rather than offering the clearly defined lines you want from a drizzle. You should also chill the glass after you add the chocolate to ensure that the cocktail does not mess it up the second it’s poured. 

Cocoa powder is an excellent and easy garnish to implement on an array of sweet drinks. Not only does it offer a fun visual effect, but it also brings attention to the drink’s chocolate-forward aroma. 

This garnish would be excellent atop any sort of frothy cocktail that would allow it to float, rather than easily disperse into it. An expertly crafted espresso martini, for example, is prime for a cocoa powder garnish. Not only would cocoa powder offer a great visual contrast against the top of the drink, but it would also mix well with the coffee profile of the martini. You can also use it to top a White Russian, as the cocoa powder would be a fun look against the white cream background. 

Alternatively, you can also pair cocoa powder with other garnishes, per Bridget Albert’s instructions. “Use a fine mesh strainer to dust powder of foam or whipped cream,” she says. 

Herbs are a popular garnish for foods, but did you know that you can also use them as a tool to enhance your drinks? Chocolate leaves, as Lisa Sawyer Derman calls them, can easily transform your cocktail and impart a unique, vibrant feel. She suggests chocolate leaf garnishes, “to enjoy a spirited cocktail that celebrates the arrival of warm weather and time spent outdoors under the trees.”

Derman recommends using edible plants or herbs for this hack — like mint, basil, or lemon — and rinsing each leaf well before starting. Her go-to chocolate is the Ghirardelli 72% dark chocolate squares, which she melts before dipping the leaf, “veiny-side down” into the melted chocolate — though she also shares that you can take a pastry brush to them to apply the chocolate. “I always double-check that the chocolate is evenly distributed on the leaf and that there is a generous amount,” she says. 

Once the chocolate has hardened onto the leaf, the next and final step is to gently peel the leaf off the chocolate. “Your result will be a beautiful and delicate chocolate ‘leaf’ that can bring your cocktails to life in a really special way,” Derman says. 

Sometimes, making the perfect chocolate garnishes for your cocktails requires a little bit more of an artsy approach. One of Bridget Albert’s suggestions, which adds a “high glam factor” to your cocktails, is to grab a sheet of wax paper and melted chocolate. She explains that you can pipe the melted chocolate onto the wax paper, give it time to chill until it hardens, then carefully use it to decorate your cocktails. It would be a great way to add height to your chocolate martini or create a fun visual contrast for a boozy hot chocolate. 

You can use a piping bag for this hack, or cut the corner off of a plastic bag instead. Since wax paper tends to move and shift, you’ll want to weigh it down on your baking sheet so that your designs dry flat. You can also trace shapes on your wax paper to give you some guidance on where to pipe. 

Chocolate spoons may seem, for lack of a better word, childish. But it’s hard to resist a warm chocolate cocktail that’s infused with even more chocolate flavor thanks to one of them. 

Bridget Albert says that chocolate spoons are “both functional and tasty,” and notes that you can easily make one at home by dipping a spoon into melted chocolate and letting it harden. You can even add sprinkles or colorful twists, like freeze-dried fruit, to the base of the spoon so that those flavors swirl into your beverage when you go to mix it. Alternatively, you can also pick up or order a package of chocolate spoons and use those instead. 

It’s important to note that this “garnish” is only really effective for hot beverages — like boozy hot chocolates — seeing as how you want the chocolate to dissolve. There are many liquors and liqueurs you can add to an adult hot chocolate to complement both the chocolate spoon and the creamy, milky beverage. For one, try an orange liqueur or Kahlúa.  

Who doesn’t love chocolate-covered strawberries? Truth be told, you may like them even more when they’re delicately perched on the rim of your cocktail. 

Bridget Albert says that chocolate-dipped treats, as a whole, are “both edible and aesthetically beautiful.” Sure, it may take more time to assemble than a sprinkle of cocoa powder or chocolate shavings, but it will elevate the appearance and experience of sipping on your cocktail of choice. Lisa Sawyer Derman recommends using this chocolate-coated confection to garnish a glass of Champagne. “The bubbles, paired with the fresh strawberries and chocolate, make for a perfect drink to have at any celebration,” she says. 

Making your own chocolate-covered strawberries is simple. Start with sizable, ripe strawberries and high-quality chocolate. Chocolate chips are not generally used for coating fruit, as they contain stabilizers and can look cloudy when they harden. Instead, use chocolate candy melts or a chocolate with a high cocoa butter content. It may be a little messy when you go to affix the fruit to the rim, so try to use a toothpick to perch it on the edge — without breaking the hardened chocolate coating. 

It turns out that margaritas aren’t the only beverages that deserve a festive and tasty rim. If you have melted chocolate (and perhaps other chocolatey goodies), you too can add a beautiful and decadent garnish to your cocktail glass. 

Adding a rim to your cocktail glass is an incredibly low-effort hack to make it look like it came out of an expensive bar. Simply pour melted chocolate into a flat-ish dish, dip the rim of your cocktail glass into it, and let it set in the fridge until you’re ready to serve. If you want a rim that’s a little sweeter, consider mixing together cocoa powder and sugar, then dipping your glass into water before twirling it in the dry garnish. Cocoa powder tends to be cough-inducing, so you may want to use a 2-to-1 sugar-to-cocoa ratio to prevent overwhelming your palate. 

You can also dip your glass into caramel, then finish it with chocolate candies or chocolate sprinkles. This would be a fun garnish for a grown-up frozen mudslide or frozen chocolate martini. 

Lisa Sawyer Derman explains that one of her favorite garnishes to experiment with is chocolate-dipped blood orange slices. She walks us through the steps: first slicing a few blood oranges about ¼-inch thick, then baking them for a few hours, flipping occasionally, until they are completely dehydrated. Like with the chocolate leaves, she likes to use Ghirardelli 72% dark chocolate squares, noting that they’re “not too sweet and [have] a delightful hint of bitterness.” Once the rounds have been dipped halfway in the melted chocolate, they can be left to chill and harden on a baking sheet. 

To help affix the fruit to the glass, Derman explains that you can slice a small slit in the uncovered portion of the fruit and slide it right the rim. This would be a great garnish for an orange-infused chocolate cocktail, like a chocolate-orange Old Fashioned or martini. 

It’s important to think of the garnish as an edible tool for embellishing your beverages. While yes, its purpose is decorative, it should also taste good and add some sort of value to your sipping experience. If you’re after more of a chocolate and cocktail pairing, for example, you may play around with chocolate-covered caramels — per Lisa Sawyer Derman’s suggestion. She suggests pairing this candy alongside a bourbon, served neat with a splash of water. The sweet caramel flavor of the candy would work well against the slightly oaky profile of the spirit, while the chocolate would round out the mouthfeel. 

You can also experiment with different truffle pairings for your cocktail, too. A cocktail that utilizes coffee — either a coffee liqueur or a shot of espresso — would be well suited for a coffee-infused truffle. Find ways to create synergy between your cocktail and your candy of choice for a delectably harmonious bite. 

What is the signature of a good espresso martini — besides the perfectly frothy top, punchy coffee flavor, and boozy twist? The sprinkling of espresso beans on top, of course — you know, the ones TikTokers flick off the top of the beverage before sipping it. These couple of beans help sippers clearly identify that the drink is indeed an espresso martini, and garnishing your beverage with them shows some level of refinement.

Instead of using plain espresso beans to garnish your homemade espresso martini, opt for chocolate-covered ones instead. Of course, you can buy these beans already covered (Trader Joe’s makes an excellent product, if we do say so ourselves). Though you can also melt some chocolate down, drop the beans in, and then spread them on a baking sheet to harden. Be sure to space them out well, as they tend to clump up, and let them harden before adorning your cocktail with them. 

Milkshakes are good … but boozy milkshakes are even better. This frozen cacophony of ice cream, milk, and spirits is a favorite among many, especially on hot summer nights when you want to cool down with an after-dinner, dessert-drink hybrid. The next time you want to upgrade your milkshake with extra pizzazz, consider turning to a decadent chocolate garnish. 

Your options are endless here, seeing as how milkshakes are designed to be a little extra — especially compared to daintier cocktails. Want to load up a slice of chocolate cake atop your milkshake? Go right ahead, and pair it with a birthday cake vodka. Chocolate cookies more up your alley? Add a drizzle of chopped cookies and try a twist on a Grasshopper by adding mint chocolate chip (or mint Oreo) ice cream, crème de menthe, and crème de cacao. It’s like a celebration in a cup.

You may be familiar with regular bitters, but what about chocolate bitters — otherwise known as cocoa bitters? You can use them to give your Old Fashioned cocktail a chocolatey boost. Lisa Sawyer Derman makes hers with vanilla maple bourbon over ice with three dashes of bitters. “The result is an easy, bourbon-forward cocktail with a subtle hint of chocolate that enhances the rich undertones that bourbon is known for: vanilla, caramel, and oak,” she says. 

There are also ways to integrate this unique and deeply flavorful ingredient into your garnish. For one, you can add a dash to your whipped cream to infuse it with a subtle chocolatey and bitter undertone. Or, for an egg white cocktail, try using a toothpick to swirl a drop or two of bitters into a creative design on top before serving.

Whipped cream is a common and decadent topping for an array of sweet, boozy cocktails, including milkshakes, Irish coffee, mudslides, and even White Russians. So, it makes sense why you would want to infuse your whipped cream with some chocolatey element. The easiest way is to add cocoa powder to a homemade whipped cream recipe. 

Pick your favorite method — be it using a hand mixer, whisk, or stand mixer — and combine the heavy whipping cream, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract together until it reaches the stiff peak stage. Just don’t over-mix it, as it’s really easy to turn a fluffy homemade whipped cream into butter. Once mixed, transfer to a piping bag or simply dollop it on top of your cocktail. 

While it might not add the same “wow” factor as some of the garnishes on this list, a simple chocolate-infused whipped cream will draw attention to the flavors in your beverage and offer a strong, chocolatey aroma. And, whatever you don’t use can always be stored for other, non-cocktail uses — like for ice cream sundaes and coffee.