Midori Sour Highball

The Midori Sour is a classic cocktail dating to the late 1970s or early 1980s. While variations exist, at its core is a combination of Midori melon liqueur and lemon or lime juice, sometimes incorporating seltzer, egg white, or additional spirits like vodka or gin.

The cocktail’s key ingredient, Midori, is produced by Suntory, the Japanese beverage company mostly known for Japanese whiskies. After introducing the product in Japan in 1964 where it was originally known as Hermes Melon Liqueur, the melon liqueur was rebranded as Midori, which translates roughly to the color green, or that of fresh plant shoots, leaves, or grass, and debuted in the U.S. in 1978 at the legendary Studio 54 in New York City. 

Midori’s primary flavor comes from Japanese muskmelon, including that of the Yubari King hybrid. A geographically protected rare type of cantaloupe, Yubari King can only be cultivated in its namesake city near Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, and can regularly fetch hundreds of dollars or more for a single fruit.

Earning a place in popular drinking culture throughout the 1980s, the Midori Sour was unmistakable due to its neon green hue, often garnished with an equally bright cherry, and, despite its name, marketed towards consumers who favored sweeter cocktails. 

After falling out of favor during the craft cocktail movement of the 2000s, the Midori Sour has seen a modest resurgence after Suntory reformulated the liqueur in 2013 to reduce sweetness and create a more classic melon profile.

Why the Midori Sour still works

Despite the perception of this disco-era drink, at its core, the cocktail follows the very traditional sour template, embodied in pre-Prohibition classics like the Gin Sour, Sidecar, or Daiquiri. 

While most sours follow a basic template of a hard spirit balanced with equal parts sweet and sour — the latter often being simple syrup and lemon or lime juice — the Midori Sour accomplishes this feat with just the liqueur and citrus, as Midori has enough sugar itself to balance out. This makes the drink similar in structure to a classic Amaretto Sour, another drink that gained popularity by following a classic cocktail template but reducing the prep to only two ingredients. 

Though the simplified Midori Sour of two parts Midori to one part lemon or lime juice persists, most have updated the drink to include a base spirit and egg white or seltzer for texture. 

In this recipe, neutral vodka is included to create backbone while keeping the saccharine melon liqueur in check. The drink is then lengthened with soda water to create a sour highball in the classic Collins style.

While lemon or lime juice can be used to provide the drink’s signature sour element, here both are included to create depth and provide flavor more akin to native Japanese citrus like yuzu or kabosu.

What you get with a properly made Midori Sour shouldn’t taste like fruit-flavored candy in a glass, but a light, effervescent drink that offers the best of spring and summer flavors, creating something that’s refreshing any time of year.