Drinks now spread through images before they spread through bars, and the traits that make a drink travel are visual and structural. Taste enters the process late, if at all.
Appearance is the entry requirement
A drink that photographs distinctively can be recognised in a still image, which is the only information most people receive about it.
Layered colours, unusual clarity, dramatic garnishes and unexpected glassware all serve this function regardless of what they contribute to the drink.
Drinks that look like every other drink in their category cannot spread this way, however good they are.
Reproducibility decides whether it travels
Spread requires people to make the drink themselves, which limits it to recipes achievable with ordinary equipment and available ingredients.
A drink needing a specialist bottle stops at the point where viewers cannot buy it, and one needing technique stops where they cannot execute it.
The recipes that circulate widest are usually three or four ingredients with no method beyond pouring and stirring.
Naming does more work than it appears to
A short, memorable name is searchable, and searchability is what converts a passive viewer into someone who looks the drink up.
Names that describe the drink's appearance travel better than names referring to a person or place, because they can be understood without context.
This is why so many widely shared drinks are named for their colour or an ingredient rather than carrying a traditional cocktail name.
Bars respond to demand rather than creating it
A bar that starts receiving requests for a drink it does not serve faces a choice between disappointing customers and adding it.
Adding it requires stocking any missing ingredient, which is where the trend converts into actual purchasing across the trade.
Producers watch this stage closely, since a spike in bar orders for an unusual ingredient is a more reliable signal than any amount of online activity.
Most of these drinks do not last
Attention moves on, and a drink that was ordered because it was recognisable stops being ordered when it stops being novel.
The ones that persist are those that turn out to be balanced enough to order twice, which is a property that only becomes visible after the attention has passed.
The lasting effect is usually on ingredients rather than on recipes: a spirit or liqueur introduced to a wide audience by a passing drink often stays on shelves long after the drink has gone.