In 2014, the XX Commonwealth Games — a competition where the countries in the Commonwealth of Nations compete in a celebration of sport — took place in Glasgow, Scotland. To commemorate the event and celebrate all 71 participating countries, mixologist Mal Spence created the Commonwealth Cocktail, crafted with 71 international ingredients.

Mal Spence took six months of experimentation, trying over 300 ingredients to perfect the bright pink punch. Spence then crafted the ingredients into "Commonwealth Bitters" and added 3-4 drops to 50 milliliters of blended Scotch whiskey, 40 milliliters of Hawthorn Drinks Honey and lavender shrub, and 10 milliliters of Hawthorn Drinks Dandelion & Burdock Syrup.

Some ingredients make sense in the recipe, like pomegranate from Maldives, prickly pear from Namibia, sugar cane from Guyana, and sweet basil from St. Lucia. However, there are also ingredients like ladies finger from Samoa (a small, sweet banana), sapodilla from Turks & Caicos (the fruit of a tropical evergreen tree), and galangal from Malaysia (a root similar to ginger or turmeric).