Pale amber sherry cobbler with orange half-slices, raspberries and a white paper straw in a plain tumbler of snow-like ice, beside a shaker tin and an orange half on gray linen. — Sherry cobbler over shaved ice in a plain tumbler, with orange slices, berries and a straw.

Sherry Cobbler, the 1862 Bar Recipe

Name: Sherry Cobbler
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 tbsp superfine sugar; 1 tbsp cold water; 4 fl oz amontillado or fino sherry; 2 orange slices, halved; 1 1/2 cups crushed ice; 4 raspberries or blackberries

Jump to recipe

Two wine-glasses of sherry, a tablespoon of sugar and slices of orange, shaken in a tumbler of shaved ice and finished with berries and a straw: Jerry Thomas’s Sherry Cobbler of 1862.

By Forgotten DrinkPublished October 22, 2026

Recipe makes: 1 drink
Prep: 5 min
Total: 5 min

Jump to recipe Read the story

Sherry cobbler over shaved ice in a plain tumbler, with orange slices, berries and a straw.

The story behind the recipe

A sherry cobbler is sherry, sugar and orange shaken with a glassful of shaved ice, heaped with fruit and drunk through a straw. Jerry Thomas printed it in 1862 as No. 98 of How to Mix Drinks, and he cared as much about its look as its taste. The cobbler, he wrote in the entry before it, “does not require much skill in compounding, but to make it acceptable to the eye, as well as to the palate, it is necessary to display some taste in ornamenting the glass after the beverage is made.”

A drink with its own picture

Thomas gave the cobbler a wood engraving: a straight tumbler heaped above the rim with ice and slices of fruit, and a long straw standing in it. His recipe points to the picture instead of describing it: “Place a straw as represented in the wood-cut.” He called the cobbler “an American invention,” though by then it was “a favorite in all warm climates.”

The wine was easy to find. One Willard’s Hotel wine list from Washington prices eleven sherries, from plain Table Sherry to an Imperial Amontillado and a Club House Sherry of 1840. The story of that card, its corkage charge and its pencils, is in The Wine List at Willard’s Hotel.

Making it today

Thomas’s wine-glass is taken as 2 fluid ounces, the measure William Kitchiner gives in 1822, so two make 4 fl oz of sherry. Thomas doesn’t name a style; a dry amontillado or fino suits the orange and berries, and a sweet cream sherry would make a much sweeter drink. Dissolving the sugar in a spoonful of water first is our addition, borrowed from his Catawba Cobbler two entries later, because sugar dissolves slowly in cold wine. For ice as fine as his, crush cubes in a clean towel with a rolling pin.

At 18% for the sherry, with about an ounce of melt from the shake, the drink comes to roughly 12% alcohol, a little over one US standard drink, and it weakens as the ice goes. TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab) makes the same recipe with less sherry and muddled orange. For a sparkling cousin, Thomas’s next entry is the Champagne Cobbler.

98. Sherry Cobbler.
(Use large bar glass.)
2 wine-glasses of sherry.
1 table-spoonful of sugar.
2 or 3 slices of orange.
Fill a tumbler with shaved ice, shake well, and ornament with berries in season. Place a straw as represented in the wood-cut.

Jerry ThomasHow to Mix Drinks (1862), No. 98, p. 47

Read the full story

Ingredients

For 1 drink. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 1 drink.

Superfine sugar1 tbsp
Cold water1 tbsp
Amontillado or fino sherry4 fl oz
Orange, halved2 slices
Crushed ice1 1/2 cups
Raspberries or blackberries4

Ingredients as written here

1 tbsp superfine sugar
1 tbsp cold water
4 fl oz amontillado or fino sherry
2 orange slices, halved
1 1/2 cups crushed ice
4 raspberries or blackberries

Equipment

Cocktail shaker
Large tumbler and a straw

Instructions

Stir the superfine sugar into the cold water in the tumbler until it dissolves.
Add the sherry and the orange slices, then fill the tumbler to the brim with crushed ice.
Cover the tumbler with the shaker tin and shake well for about 10 seconds, then pour everything back into the tumbler.
Top up with a little more ice so it mounds above the rim, set the raspberries on top and stand a straw in the glass. Serve at once.

Nutrition

240calories per serving

Recipe makes: 1 drink

Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for dry dessert wine (for the sherry), granulated sugar, orange and raspberries, counting the fruit as eaten.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

This is one drink, built and shaken in its own glass. Make each cobbler separately.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.

Shaking in the glass with the tin over it keeps the ice and fruit in the drink; a standard shaker works too if you pour the whole contents back into the tumbler without straining.

Thomas’s “berries in season” leaves the fruit open: strawberries, blackberries or a few slices of pineapple all suit. For an alcohol-free glass with the same look, the grape juice highball is grape juice and soda over a little ice.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment.