Thai Mango Sticky Rice Cocktail

Everyone’s favorite Thai dessert is mango and sticky riceand now you can have it in a festive cocktail! I came up with this recipe for the live cooking class which I hosted with my Sabai Talk Podcast co-host, chef Hong Thaimee. I wanted to make a Thai flavoured cocktail with a flavour combination that I know would be a guaranteed hit, and this was it. The secret is the clever technique called “rice washing” which makes for an exceptionally smooth cocktail

Ingredients and Notes

Here are all the ingredients you’ll need and important notes about them. For amounts, see the the full recipe card below.

• Mango juice. Get the best mango juice you can as the flavour of the cocktail relies heavily on the quality of the juice. It’s hard to find pure mango juice, so a blend is fine, as long as it still tastes distinctly of mango. You can also blend mango pieces and make your own juice, more on that below.
• Vodka. I tested this cocktail with various alcohol, including gin, rum, even mezcal! They all actually tasted great, but I decided to stick with the neutral tasting vodka to preserve the flavour profile of mango sticky rice. Other alcohols altered the flavour of the drink too much, but you can certainly experiment.
• Coconut milk. Since this isn’t going to be cooked, and it’s one of two main flavours of the drink, a good quality coconut milk is important. I use Aroy D brand in UHT paper carton (not can). You can also read my article all about coconut milk to find out how to choose the best one.
• Pandan leaf. Pandan is to Thai dessert what vanilla is to Western desserts. It has a lovely floral aroma that goes very well with coconut milk. Look for it wherever you buy your Thai groceries, and you can use fresh or frozen leaves. If you can’t find it, it is fine to omit. If you have pandan extract, you can add it a drop at a time until a scent comes through, but don’t overdo it as it can taste chemically when overdone.
• Uncooked white rice. This is optional, but it will help make your cocktail smoother due to the “rice washing” technique (more details below). You can use any kind of white rice since we just need the starch, but I used Thai glutinous rice (sticky rice) because it is the starchiest, and it keeps with the mango-sticky-rice theme :).
• Ice cubes.

How to Make Mango Sticky Rice Cocktail

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the process. The full instructions are in the recipe card below. Please excuse the low quality images as these are screenshots taken from the live cooking class which I encourage you to watch!

1. Grind the pandan leaves with a splash of the vodka until the leaves are bruised and broken down slightly. You can also use a cocktail muddler.
2. Add the remaining vodka and stir or swirl to mix.
3. Strain the vodka out, discarding the pandan leaves.
4. In a shaker, combine the mango juice, pandan vodka, coconut milk, rice and ice cubes and shake until fully chilled. Pour into a serving glass through a strainer. You can serve the cocktail with ice in a rocks glass, or without ice in a martini glass.

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