The Lychee Martini Returns

Born in the late 1990s, the drink rose with Asian-fusion dining. Pale pink, photogenic, and dressed with an unfamiliar fruit, it was glamorous yet approachable, exotic yet easy to order. Celebrities and diners alike made it part of the moment. But by the mid-2000s, shortcuts dulled its charm. Syrupy canned juice and heavy pours consigned it to kitsch. The lychee martini slipped into obscurity, remembered mostly as a relic of “martini night.”

Now it has returned, not as a sugary throwback, but as one of the chicest cocktails of 2025. Across the world’s bar menus, the lychee martini is suddenly everywhere. In New York, speakeasies add elderflower for a delicate lift. In Miami, chili heat plays against its floral sweetness. In London, Michelin chefs mix lychee with yuzu and white tea. In Singapore, pandan leaves perfume the glass. The common thread is balance: fresh fruit purée, lime for acidity, and premium spirits that let the lychee shine.

Variation is part of its strength. Today’s lychee martini is no longer a novelty, it is a canvas for bartenders to explore, as versatile as the Margarita or Negroni.

Part of the appeal lies in chemistry. Lychee’s signature fragrance comes from linalool, also found in jasmine and basil, which explains why it feels at once exotic and familiar. Ayurveda calls it a cooling fruit, a natural balance to the sharpness of spirits.

But the larger reason is cultural. The same diaspora-driven wave that put turmeric lattes in cafés and chili crisp in pantries is now reshaping cocktail lists. From Darjeeling Negronis to saffron old-fashioneds, mixology has become a way to tell stories. The lychee martini, floral and endlessly adaptable, sits right at the center.

Part of the martini’s magic is aesthetic. Its blush tint glows against marble counters. A lychee fruit perched on a pick recalls a pearl resting on glass. Bartenders garnish with edible flowers, saffron threads, or even pandan leaves. Served in a sharp coupe or a vintage stem, the lychee martini captures the very mood of 2025: modern, nostalgic, elegant, and unmistakably global.

The drink’s comeback has not gone unnoticed in pop culture. In late July, Taylor Swift was spotted sipping a lychee martini on a night out in New York. Weeks later, at Brittany Mahomes’s Nashville birthday party, Swift balanced a martini glass on her friend’s head in a playful moment that went viral, Mahomes even joked on Instagram that she needed “a break from lychee martinis” after the bash.

Supermodel Bella Hadid took it further at her Orébella fragrance launch in Los Angeles, where guests mingled in a garden with a fountain flowing with lychee martinis. Even her manicure matched the drink’s blush hue. And in Atlanta, Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour inspired rooftop bars to craft “Virgo’s Groove,” a bespoke lychee martini with vodka, yuzu, and elderflower.

From pop icons to fashion’s front row, the lychee martini has become the cocktail of choice for the chic and camera-ready.

To order a lychee martini today is to drink more than sweetness. It is to sip heritage and innovation, memory and craft, science and style. Once dismissed as dated, it has become a marker of cultural confidence: lychee as story, lychee as bridge, lychee as trend refined into classic.

So the next time you see it on a menu, order one. Or better yet, shake one up at home, garnish it with saffron, and raise your glass. Share it with a friend, post it with pride, and taste the renaissance for yourself.