Solid cocktails have entered the bartender chat—and you can throw away those Dixie Cups.

For many, the words “Jell-O shot” trigger technicolor memories. Perhaps you were first handed one in the basement of some gross frat party, just before the foam machines turned on. Or was it a tray of glowing red Dixie Cups passed around at a backyard barbecue? Maybe a friend bought a discounted round at a dive bar. In any scenario, Jell-O shots—even those arriving in neon-blue-razz form—have long signaled fun (a different sort of fun from a well-considered cocktail, to be sure). Having written about drinks since the pinnacle of the craft cocktail movement, I’ve noticed that in this moment of world-spanning dread, the best bars are grabbing on to fun wherever they can find it. Enter the energy-shifting Jell-O shot.

For as long as state colleges have televised 11 a.m. kickoffs, the Jell-O shot was no more than a healthy amount of vodka or white rum added to a box of flavored gelatin and poured into single-serve vessels. But why stop there? Looking to harness the celebratory vibe of the bouncy shots in a more upscale setting, the formula has recently evolved, with top-level bars and fancy restaurants offering Jell-O shots that are miniature gelatinized versions of cocktails, treated with the same care as the rest of their drink menus. Tallboy in Oakland, California, for example, has made a name for itself with shots of all sorts, including $4 Jell-O shots offered in flavors like OnlyFans Martini (a passionfruit-forward shot inspired by the modern classic Porn Star Martini) and Chamoy Boy (a tangy, chamoy-infused shot with blanco tequila, lime, and a sprinkle of Tajín). At Silver Lyan in Washington, DC, bartenders laboriously hull citrus and fill the empty shells with elaborate Jell-O cocktails, finally slicing them into wedges to be served with a Champagne sidecar. They sell somewhere between 60 and 110 wedges on an average weekend night, and thousands every month. “Some people come in and order them right away, before we even give them water,” says general manager Alex Leidy. He points to a baijiu melon ball with jamón ibérico salt garnish as his favorite version the bar has made.

While some bar directors have put kitchen walk-ins to use in producing their own jellies, others, like Milady’s in Manhattan and Rose’s Luxury in Washington, DC, opt to purchase theirs from the New York City–based company Solid Wiggles—the new gold standard. Solid Wiggles cocktail jellies are perfectly translucent, decorated with glitter, plaid stripes, splatter paint, or joyful flowers that have been magically and sculpturally constructed within the cubes using syringes, various injection tips, and X-Acto knives. These may seem impossible to replicate at home, but next week, Solid Wiggles owners Jena Derman and Jack Schramm will release their first cookbook, which details how they go about creating these undeniably dazzling jellies.

As Derman and Schramm tell it, their partnership was one of necessity. The two met in 2013 while working at Momofuku Milk Bar in New York’s East Village. Derman continued in the baking and pastry world, and Schramm went on to work at Booker and Dax, a pioneering cocktail bar led by Dave Arnold, who has long approached cocktail making with a mad scientist’s attention to detail. At some point, Derman made a boozy jelly birthday cake for a friend, which spun into numerous orders for her stunning, colorful, wiggly works. The further she got into the business, the more she realized she needed help, specifically when it came to clarity and flavor. Schramm was just the person to call. They’ve been working together since 2020, now with a Brooklyn-based kitchen outfitted with high-tech tools like a centrifuge (the answer to the clarity conundrum) and a chamber vacuum sealer, and a small staff that works on the jellies.

Karin Stanley, beverage director at Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi, the acclaimed restaurant in New York’s Lincoln Center, has been buying Solid Wiggles jellies since the early days. “Tatiana opening was a fever dream—such a big, colorful concept being painted onto the hallowed walls of Lincoln Center,” Stanley recalls. “I knew immediately I wanted all the beverages to be engaging, in flavors, visuals, brand choices. Solid Wiggles was a natural choice.” Schramm and Derman created a custom flavor for Tatiana that played off the design of the space: a mango margarita called Under the Clouds, “with the aesthetics of our purple Frank Gehry lighting,” notes Stanley.

Stanley says she never even considered trying to make her own boozy jellies. “Are you kidding? This is a labor of love and an artistic point of view. I don’t have the technical skills or the visual whimsy to pull off anything close to Wiggles,” she says.

The new book, also called Solid Wiggles, showcases how Jell-O shots can become an art form by sharing techniques and tips, like unmolding and using gelatin sheets rather than powder. “We tried to make our recipes work with powder, but we couldn’t escape the horrible truth: Powdered gelatin smells like a fart. Once Pandora’s Butt is open, there’s no un-smelling it,” they write.

And then there’s the chemistry behind clarification, advice on balancing recipes that ordinarily contain bubbles. All the recipes (aside from those that are nonalcoholic) come in around 5% ABV (alcohol by volume), which means that one would need to eat a lot of Jell-O shots for them to have much of a boozy impact. Derman and Schramm say they’ve decided on this level to give flavor balance to their shots, but it also makes it more legally straightforward for them to distribute their jellies. Soon they will be shipping nationwide. The company currently makes between 8,000 and 10,000 jellies every week.

The book is divided into two sections of recipes: Party Animal and Party Pro. The first, Derman explains, is for when “you want to make Jell-O for tonight, and all you have are measuring cups and measuring spoons.” These are the more straightforward mix-and-pour recipes, everything from Midori sour shots to Paper Planes. In the Party Pro half of the book, you’ll need to break out your injection tips (soon to be sold on the Solid Wiggles website). Here, a mimosa becomes a canvas for milk jelly flowers with a layer of prosecco.

“We’re certainly not the first to add alcohol or create intricate, colorful designs in jellies,” Derman and Schramm write in the book, pointing to Tom Lehrer, a 1950s comedian who used Jell-O as a vessel to sneak booze into an army base party; artist Lourdes Reyes Rosas, who created floral 3D gelatin pieces in Mexico City in the 1990s; and even mention of wine aspics dating to the Middle Ages in Le Viandier de Taillevent, which is considered one of the earliest French cookbooks.

Whereas the frat party version of Jell-O shots served as a great equalizer, with everyone using their index fingers to pry the Jell-O out of a little cup, today’s versions have the same hurrah-inducing vibe at the table. “Dinner guests will do jellies at pretty much any point of their meal,” Stanley says—amuse-bouche, palate cleanser, or an “item to put a birthday candle in at the end of the meal. There’s truly not any best time.”

“People like to take shots to sharing a moment together,” says Leidy. “Even if it’s just Friday and the week is done—woo!”

And while a ritzy Jell-O shot is the current hit, a modest one still has its place. Alex Jump, co-owner of Denver’s Peach Crease Club, grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where a woman made Jell-O shots for a local parade every summer. Following suit, Jump will be serving $8 green tea Jell-O shots from a walk-up to-go window in a venture called the Peach Pit, which sits on a plaza adjacent to a music venue called the Mission Ballroom. While waiting for tickets, concertgoers can use their fingers to pop out a combination of Jameson, a local peach liqueur from Colorado distillery Leopold Bros, a housemade lemon cordial, and a little Kota pandan liqueur and know it’s going to be a good night.