The Cocktail Trend That Needs To Go Away In 2026, According To A Mixologist

Cocktails go through fads and trends, just like everything else. Particularly in the age of social media, a clever new combination of ingredients or a particularly eye-catching presentation has the potential to become the toast of the town for a while, filling all our feeds with reproductions and derivations. Some of these trends are legitimately clever, and deserve to stick around, but many (perhaps most) are better left as a vague memory. For Justin Lavenue, master mixologist, co-owner of The Roosevelt Room, and the owner/operator of The Eleanor and RoadHaus Mobile Cocktails, there is one mixology fad in particular he hopes we can leave behind.

"One trend I'd happily see fade away in 2026 is the obsession with overly complicated, garnish-heavy cocktails that prioritize spectacle over balance," Lavenue reveals. It may be that there are simply too many mixologists behind the bar, with social media pushing everyone to invent new things all the time — and to make them look especially interesting — but there is a definite tendency these days toward prioritizing wow-factor over quality. "There's nothing wrong with a drink that looks beautiful," Lavenue adds, "but when the garnish becomes the entire point of the drink, it often means the cocktail itself is an afterthought."

Garnishes are one of the expected cocktail trends of 2026, but it may be that prevalence of short-form video platforms keeps pushing us in the direction of spectacle over substance. Recipes like super-garnished micheladas and cocktails with lit sparklers stuck in them will, after all, continue to catch the eyes of picky scrollers. "At the end of the day, a great cocktail should first and foremost be delicious and well-balanced," the mixologist notes. "If it also happens to look great on Instagram, that's just a bonus."

None of this is to say that the look of a drink isn't important but the reason for cocktail garnishes is about more than just eye candy. Ideally, whatever clever garnish goes with the drink should serve both the appearance and the flavor or aroma, but the focus should be on subtle enhancement, not putting on a show. "The visual gimmicks often overshadow the craft," Lavenue says. "Bartending is a culinary art form, and the real creativity should live in the ingredients, technique, and balance of the drink, not just the decoration sitting on top of it."

For most cocktails, simple is just fine. Garnishing with a twist of citrus peel is all that many drinks really need, something to add visual allure as well as a touch of aroma. Fresh herbs, a slice of fruit, a cherry — these are all garnishes that have long served bartenders and mixologists of all stripes. That said, there is room for creativity, so long as it doesn't come at the expense of the drink itself. Tiki-style cocktails often have exciting garnishes and alluring presentation, but these are added to cocktails with solid bones, not used to distract.

Instead of focusing on wowing the eyes of drinkers, Lavenue suggests that the trend we should lean into is studying the flavors of the past and reviving once-popular vintage cocktail recipes. "There are thousands of incredible drinks from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that most people have never heard of," he says. "Exploring those drinks and interpreting them through a modern lens is far more interesting than building cocktails purely for their visual shock value."