When pastry chef Christina Tosi first joined the team at David Chang’s Momofuku in 2005, there were no desserts on any of the restaurant group’s menus. And despite being hired in a food safety and administrative role — not a pastry chef role — that didn’t stop Tosi from going on to introduce the very first desserts at several Momofuku outposts. But perhaps none of those desserts is as notable as the revolutionary soft serve flavor she first developed for Momofuku Noodle Bar: Cereal Milk.
The flavor, achieved by infusing toasted Corn Flakes in cold milk and using that as a base for ice cream, tapped into playful childhood emotions and was an instant sensation. It also paved the way for the very first Momofuku Milk Bar (a.k.a. Milk Bar) in 2008. By 2012, there were nine Milk Bar locations serving cereal milk soft serve alongside various other desserts and Tosi was a James Beard Award-winning chef.
The popularity of cereal milk desserts quickly translated to the bar and gave rise to multiple cereal milk-inspired cocktails made with anything from Cheerios to Trix. But despite enjoying quite the run in the early 2010s, cereal milk-flavored food and drinks started fading from the public imagination by 2016. Sure, some bartenders held onto their Froot Loop- and Cinnamon Toast Crunch-infused creations, but for the most part cereal milk remained a thing of the past — until now.
Across the country, working bartenders are once again experimenting with the flavor, and thanks to the clarification craze, the fixation on food-inspired cocktails, and an overarching nostalgia trend, these cocktails are more imaginative — and more delicious — than ever before.
Change Up the Milk Flavor…
In recent years, clarified cocktails have dominated menus, captivating drinkers with interesting flavors and silky textures. But after clarification — a common approach — what is there to do but innovate with the type of milk used in the cocktail?
“I’ve seen some people swap for buttermilk or yogurt, but when you’re trying to be creative about milk, you think about flavor,” says Kate Gerwin, owner of Happy Accidents Bar in Albuquerque, N.M., where two cereal milk cocktails currently populate the menu. “And unless you’re using strawberry or chocolate milk, the only other thing to default to is cereal, which is fun because there are so many different flavors to play with.”
At Happy Accidents, Gerwin serves up the Boyz to the Yard and the Accidentally Loopy, two clarified cocktails featuring Cocoa Puffs and Froot Loops, respectively. The former leans into more traditional mezcal pairings, fusing the smoky agave spirit with the chocolaty breakfast cereal and orange, along with espresso, fennel, and lemon. But while the Boyz to the Yard is a newer creation, the Accidentally Loopy is over a decade old, and captures the spirit of the original cereal milk craze.
Made with vodka, Froot Loops, pineapple, coriander, and lemon juice, the Accidentally Loopy first appeared on menu at a bar in Bismark, N.D., and was a smashing success. Since its debut, Gerwin has featured it at every bar she’s worked at, and has been “forced” to continue listing it. “I’ve had [it] on a menu for literally the last 12 years. I cannot take it off — trust me, I’ve tried. People come back like, ‘How could you do this to us?’” she says. “We normally rotate drinks, but I cannot take that one off. It has a cult following.”
Across the country in NYC, SoHo hotspot The Corner Store also serves up a clarified cereal milk cocktail, dubbed the Cap’n Crunch Milk Punch. The childhood cereal joins tequila, amontillado sherry, and maple verjus to create a cocktail that’s nutty and caramely; innovative, but familiar.
“Our goal was to find a flavor for this cocktail that would resonate with our guests and transport them back to the past. Cap’n crunch just fit the bill,” says beverage director Lucas Robinson. “It’s weirdly comforting, and it felt like something people would instantly get.”
The same cereal stars in Oiji Mi’s upcoming GNX Punch, which was inspired by a misheard lyric from the song “Wacced Out Murals” on Kendrick Lamar’s sixth studio album, GNX. Beck Hargrave, a bartender at the Korean restaurant and the cocktail’s creator, originally heard “Have you ever had Cap’n Crunch and proceeded to put Hennessy in it?” when Lamar really says “Put water in it.” Despite the mondegreen, Hargrave was inspired.
“Trying the combination as a milk punch happened pretty organically,” he says. “It felt like the most natural thing to do.”
Perhaps no cereal milk cocktail in New York is quite as beloved as Little Rascal’s Cosmic Debris, a Fruity Pebbles and pistachio cream cocktail shaken up at the bar’s Nolita and Greenpoint locations. While the drink isn’t clarified, it delivers the same luscious mouthfeel that entices drinkers. A Whiskey Sour variation, it combines cereal and pistachio cream with bourbon, lemon, and egg white for a cocktail that delivers nutty vanilla and sweet fruit notes.
“The Cosmic Debris is easily one of our most famous cocktails, people specifically come in for this Fruity Pebbles drink because they saw it online,” says Little Rascal Greenpoint’s head bartender Keith Larry. “But it was a really natural evolution for us. Cereal and bourbon are both majority corn, so we added them together and ended up with a really nicely balanced drink.”
While these cocktails might be cereal milk inspired, the funniest part about their creation is that there is rarely any actual cereal milk in the build. Rather than infusing milk with a cereal of choice, most bartenders infuse the base spirit, and the reason is fairly simple: Alcohol is simply better at extracting flavor than milk is.
“I’ve done the cereal milk way of doing a clarified milk punch, and it’s fine and dandy, don’t get me wrong. But if you actually make cereal milk, the flavor doesn’t come across as much,” Gerwin says. “Alcohol is a natural solvent; it absorbs and extracts flavors very well. So if you infuse the spirit directly, you get a better result. Not to mention it’s much faster.”
…Or Remove the Milk Altogether
Tinkering with “milk” flavor by adding a cereal component isn’t the only way to revolutionize a milk punch. Sometimes, it’s possible to create the texture of a clarified cereal milk punch without using milk at all. Just ask the team at Allegory.
“It draws in a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily gravitate towards spirit-forward cocktails [because] they’re intrigued by the ingredients.”
Recently named one of the Best Bars in North America by 50 Best, the Washington D.C., cocktail bar serves an Old Fashioned riff — aptly named Saturday Morning Cartoons — featuring liquified Corn Flakes that mimics a childhood bowl of cereal. The best part? It arrives in a ceramic Kimura bowl complete with a cereal spoon.
As Deke Dunne, Allegory’s beverage and creative director, explains, nailing the cocktail was one of the team’s most difficult challenges to date.
“One of our goals was to create a cereal milk mouthfeel without using milk or alternative dairy products, and enzymes allowed us to achieve that,” he says. “We used enzymes to liquefy the Corn Flakes, which was a significant challenge. There isn’t much accessible information on enzymes outside of industrial use, so we had to go through a tremendous amount of trial and error.”
Ultimately, the team settled on three different types of enzymes that work to break down the starch in the Corn Flakes in different ways. The result: a silky-smooth milk punch-like cocktail that is entirely dairy free, despite recreating what’s left over in the bowl after downing a helping of the cereal. And guests can’t get enough.
“Saturday Morning Cartoons is our fourth-best-selling cocktail on the menu,” Dunne says. “People looking for Old Fashioned variations gravitate towards it, but it also draws in a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily gravitate towards spirit-forward cocktails [because] they’re intrigued by the ingredients.”
Food-Inspired Cocktails Take Center Stage
While clarification and the popularity of milk punch cocktails have played a role in the revival of cereal milk, it’s impossible to discuss the flavor’s return without discussing the proliferation of food-inspired drinks. Since the opening of NYC’s Double Chicken Please, an explosion of food-inspired cocktails have taken over bar menus, mimicking everything from cold sesame noodles and Waldorf salads to strawberry cheesecake and black and white cookies. Cereal and cereal milk could simply be a natural extension of this trend.
At Chinato on the Lower East Side, Ray Zhou — who joined the team at Double Chicken Please in 2021 — has several culinary cocktails on the menu, including the Karma & Friends, which incorporates Fruity Pebbles to achieve a shortcake-like flavor. The citrusy cereal is first added to oat milk and transformed into what Zhou describes as a “lazy orgeat-like syrup” that’s used to sweeten the vodka, plum liqueur, white peach and jasmine soda, and egg white concoction.
Other culinary-driven cocktails, like the Cereal Milk White Russian at Williamsburg’s Kellogg’s Diner, simply make sense, given the setting they’re destined to be enjoyed in. “[Chef Jackie Carnesi] is full of such great ideas, especially ones that translate to Kellogg’s and the space,” says beverage lead Jojo Colonna. “Having an old-school style White Russian in a classic diner setting makes so much sense.”
“I love using cereal because it unlocks such a beautiful part of our memory bank.”
Taking notes from Milk & Honey / Attaboy’s White Russian variation, the Dominicana, Colonna incorporated Carnesi’s suggestion to craft a Cinnamon Toast Crunch-inspired take on the classic cocktail. Rather than featuring an equal-parts mixture of aged rum and coffee liqueur layered with hand-whipped cream, Kellogg’s Cereal Milk White Russian swaps in graham cracker-, cinnamon-, and salt-infused vodka to achieve that signature flavor.
“I think everyone has their favorite cereal milk flavor … and I think Milk Bar had a huge influence on popularizing this approach to flavor,” Colonna says. “That has now translated into the current culinary approach to cocktails were seeing a huge uptick in.”
Maybe It’s All About Nostalgia
These technique-driven approaches to cereal milk may have revolutionized the flavors’ current applications, but what’s likely attracting drinkers to these types of beverages isn’t their inventive approach — it’s their recognizable flavor. By incorporating familiar pantry staples into cocktails, bartenders provide a jumping off point for their guests, and hopefully evoke cozy memories of childhood mornings.
“Saturday Morning Cartoons was inspired by that link to everyone’s childhood nostalgia,” Dunne says. “I love using cereal because it unlocks such a beautiful part of our memory bank.”
Indeed, it’s the same sort of nostalgia arc we’re witnessing across drinks culture right now. Midori made a slime-green comeback last summer. The Lychee Martini has earned respect once more. There’s even an entire arms race taking place in the beer industry to reinvigorate interest via “nostalgia lager.” Cereal milk is a natural extension of this trend: It’s familiar, comforting, and it lets consumers know what they should expect.
“Nostalgia is how I tap into most of my drink creations. I’m trying to make the quest feel seen, and that’s difficult when you’ve never met someone,” Gerwin says. “But every human has a song, a movie, or a food they loved growing up that we connect with that evokes memories and feelings. Cereal is that thing for me.”
