Top Tips for Cocktail Staging Photography

Today, my entire day was spent making fake drinks and taking pictures, not a bad gig. I work for a distillery, where I handle marketing, event planning, and recipe development. One of my favorite parts of the job is coming up with cocktail recipes and dressing them up for photos.

The thing about photographing cocktails is that once the recipe is tested and perfected. Nobody can taste them through the photo. So, they don’t actually need to match the real ingredients!

Making cocktails look good on camera is an art, and over time I’ve picked up a few tricks. Here are my top tools and tips that help make my cocktail photos look flawless:

Caramel Extract 

This might go without saying, but when you're photographing cocktails, leave out the alcohol.

Clear spirits are easy to fake with water. Even darker long drinks can often pass with just water. But for spirit-forward drinks like an Old Fashioned or Manhattan, especially when using good, expensive whiskey—there’s no need to pour the real thing.

That’s where caramel extract comes in. Just a few drops added to filtered water looks exactly like whiskey. You can control the color easily by adding more or less. Bonus: it smells incredible!

Ranch Dressing

This one was a wild discovery. I was shooting a cocktail that called for cream of coconut, but I didn’t want to crack open a whole can of Coco Lopez for one photo.

Milk and coconut milk were no-go’s, since the acid in the drink made them curdle. Out of desperation, I tried a little ranch dressing and it looked perfect.

This has since become one of my favorite unexpected hacks for creamy cocktails in photos.

Fee Foam

Fee Foam is a vegan egg-white substitute that adds foam to cocktails. While I personally find it gives drinks an off, plasticky taste (so I don’t recommend drinking them), it works beautifully for photography.

Even in drinks like margaritas, a couple of drops can give you that gorgeous textured head that makes the photo pop.

Instant Espresso

When photographing coffee cocktails, I always reach for instant espresso over fresh-brewed.

Why? A few reasons:

•  It froths up really well

• You can use it with cold water (no waiting for it to cool)

• No machine needed—super convenient when you’re not in your own kitchen

Plus, it gives a great, rich color that looks awesome in photos.

Simple Syrup

I always keep simple syrup on hand, especially when I’m making ingredient substitutions. It helps control the density of the liquid, super important when you’re layering cocktails or using fake ice.

Sometimes substitutions make the drink too thin, causing ingredients that should float to sink. A bit of syrup can help balance that out and keep things behaving (and looking) as they should.

Cocktail photography is all about illusion. As long as the final drink tastes good in real life, there’s no harm in faking it for the camera. With a few simple tricks and creative stand-ins, you can make your cocktails look as incredible as they taste.