Gordon Ramsay’s Favorite Cocktail Has A Hilarious Name

British chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay is as famous for his trademark insults as he is for his no-nonsense yet refined style of cooking. It should come as no surprise that the chef’s favorite cocktail sounds like something he would say while in the depths of “Hell’s Kitchen.” In a 2016 episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Ramsay revealed that his favorite tequila-based drink is called “Wake Up, You Donkey.”

Ramsay often uses this animal as an unflattering term when talking to chefs on his TV shows. In a 2018 episode of “Hell’s Kitchen,” he described two chefs as “cooking like donkeys,” and asked if the restaurant should be rebranded as “Donkey’s Kitchen” (via YouTube). Other times, he simply shouts “You donkey!”, and Ramsay is also rather fond of telling flustered cooks to “Wake up!”.

The green-colored “Wake Up, You Donkey” cocktail featured “the most amazing tequila,” said Ramsay (via YouTube), along with cider, fresh honey, and smoked elderflower — certainly an unusual craft cocktail ingredient. The drink was then garnished with a slice of zingy lime. The chef, in his familiar expletive-laden style, took a sip and declared: “F*** me, that’s delicious.”

Back in 2016, Gordon Ramsay’s favorite cocktail was available at the Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill in Atlantic City. In a comment on a 2015 Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread, the chef described the boozy beverage as “sort of spicy, and fragrant,” though he mentioned at that time that it was made with Tanqueray gin. Perhaps this was an earlier variation before it became all about the tequila.

Unfortunately, the hilariously-named cocktail has since disappeared from the Gordon Ramsay Pub menu, though a 2019 cocktail menu for the same establishment featured a very similar drink. Named “Giddy Up You Donkey,” it featured El Jimador — an inexpensive tequila well worth buying — plus smoked elderflower honey, lime, and Strongbow cider. However, as of 2024, the pub’s menu is officially absent of any and all donkeys.

These two drinks are not the only donkey-themed cocktail Ramsay has created. His restaurant Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace — another one of Ramsay’s large number of restaurants across the globe — used to serve a flaming tiki-style drink called the Rum Donkey. However, when two diners suffered injuries from the drink in 2018, the cocktail was also removed from the menu.

In recent years, the donkey names and flames have vanished from Gordon Ramsay’s menus, replaced by somewhat more grown-up offerings. The Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill in Atlantic City currently serves beverages like a Royal Margarita, which features cranberries alongside ingredients you might find in a traditional margarita recipe, and a signature gin and tonic which incorporates aloe vera liqueur and yuzu, a fragrant Japanese citrus fruit.

Despite the lack of a donkey at the Gordon Ramsay Pub today, there is a mule — in this case, an apple mule mixed with Cîroc Apple Vodka, lime juice, cinnamon syrup, cardamom bitters, and ginger ale. With this combo of spicy ingredients, we assume it has a bit of a kick. And if you order a Notes From Gordon cocktail at one of the chef’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurants, you’ll also receive a note with a humorous message from Ramsay himself. Who knows, it might even include a famous donkey insult just for you.