Saturn Cocktail Recipe

The Saturn is a tropical frozen cocktail that is made by combining gin, lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, orgeat, and falernum in a blender with crushed ice. It has a refreshing citrusy flavor profile with tropical fruit notes and a subtle nuttiness. 

While many frozen drinks lean on rum for the base spirit, the Saturn features gin. Other tropical gin-based drinks include the Singapore Sling and the Army Navy cocktail. The Saturn features sweetening ingredients mostly known as tropical drink staples, such as passion fruit syrup, orgeat, and falernum, a spiced Caribbean liqueur.

This frozen cocktail was created by California bartender J. “Popo” Galsini for the 1967 International Bartender’s Association World Championship. The complex gin drink won Galsini the competition and was written into the modern classic cocktail lexicon. Galsini had originally titled the cocktail X-15 after the American rocket plane, but after that plane crashed, killing one of its pilots, he changed the drink’s name to the Saturn after the launch device that propelled the first Apollo flight into space. 

Galsini worked in many California bars in the mid-20th century, specializing in the tiki-style cocktails popular during this time. While his Saturn cocktail won him gold in 1967, the drink fell out of circulation for the following decades. It was revived in drink historian  Jeff “Beachbum” Berry’s 2010 book, Beachbum Berry Remixed, and has been popularized since then. 

Why the Saturn works

The Saturn relies on balancing sweet ingredients with tart and herbaceous ones. The use of gin in this cocktail is key, as the bracing, herbaceous spirit lacks the perceivable sweetness of rum or an agave-based spirit. The gin’s aromatics help temper the sweet notes present in the passionfruit syrup, orgeat, and falernum liqueur.

Tart, lightly sweet passionfruit syrup provides floral, fruity notes. For best results, use a high-quality passionfruit syrup made with real fruit. The result is a wonderfully delicate, refreshing, blended cocktail, which gets a lemon peel and cherry garnish, made to look like the rings of Saturn.