Essential Mixology:
Watching a well-heeled bartender shake and stir at the same time as she takes drink orders and cashes out tabs can be like watching a ballet. But, as you don’t have to be a ballerina to shake your groove thing, you don’t need to be able to double shake to mix up a delicious drink. Take your time and practice your skills. We’ll provide tips below, and if you just aren’t getting it, there’s always YouTube, or ask your favorite local bar star for advice—most love to teach this stuff.
Shaking - When mixing with a Boston shaker, combine your ingredients in your mixing glass, fill the glass 3/4 full with ice, place the shaker tin squarely on top and give the bottom of the inverted tin a solid tap. Flip your shaker around so the bottom of the shaker tin faces forward and the top of the mixing glass faces behind you and shake vigorously.
Dilution is key to your drink’s quality, so go for it, shaking less like you’re rocking a baby to sleep, more like you’re waking a petulant teenager up.
Dry shaking - this is a technique that will save the day (or at least your biceps) when making drinks with eggs or cream. Combine all your ingredients without ice in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for 10 seconds or so, allowing the ingredients to emulsify. Add ice and shake like your life depends on it to achieve a gorgeous, Instagram- worthy frothy top.
Stirring - This technique takes a little practice but can be quite meditative once you get the hang of it. Combine ingredients and a whole lot of ice in your mixing glass, then slide your spoon down with the back of the spoon-side against the inside of the glass. Hold the handle as you would a pencil, relax your hand, and circulate the back of the spoon around the inside of the glass. Think politely assertive rather than aggressive with your stir - the goal is to gently dilute the ice leaving your cocktail silky and smooth. Too much activity will give your drink air bubbles, which means you might as well have just shaken it in the first place.
Straining - place your strainer over the top of your glass and gently tip the contents into your desired drinking vessel. The Hawthorne strainer should fit snugly over your shaker tin, and you can steady it in place with first- and middle- finger on the strainer while the thumb and last two fingers hold the shaker tin firmly. Technique with the julep strainer will be similar, provided your strainer fits your mixing glass. Place it concave-side down over the mixing glass and strain.
Muddling - muddling is all about getting the fresh juices or oils of your ingredients to blend your cocktail. Use the Mojito and the Caipirinha as your rules of thumb: For a drink such as a Mojito, which contains the delicate herb mint, just give a little press with some of the liquid that’s called for in your recipe, to express the oils but leave the bitter stem intact. For the Caipirinha, which features lime wedges, you’ll need to put a little muscle into your muddle. Know your own strength, lest you break your mixing glass and waste your perfectly delicious cocktail.
Shake cocktails made with mixing glass and waste your perfectly delicious cocktail. citrus and eggs. Stir cocktails made with spirits, and liqueurs. James Bond had it all wrong. We can only hope, in our lifetime, for a female 007 to correct this egregious error.
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