Measure
The pour is the drink. Free-pouring a sour is how it goes sideways.
- A jigger with 1 oz and 2 oz, or ¾ and 1½, is enough. Look at the line.
- 1 oz = 30 ml. ¾ oz = 22 ml. ½ oz = 15 ml. ¼ oz = 7.5 ml. A barspoon is 5 ml / ~⅙ oz.
- A dash of bitters is a sharp downward flick of the bottle — about 0.8 ml, not a teaspoon.
- If a recipe is in ml, divide by 30 for ounces. 50 ml is a heavy 1½ oz; 60 ml is 2 oz.
How to make a double
A double is not 'more booze in the same lime.' Two kinds of double. Know which one you are pouring.
- Spirit double (highballs, G&T, mule, Paloma, Ranch Water, vodka soda): double the spirit only. The mixer still fills the glass. Citrus stays the same unless they asked for it louder. Use a taller glass if the spirit plus mixer won't fit.
- Full double (sours, stirred drinks, anything with a spec in ounces): every liquid doubles. Garnish stays one. Bitters double. Egg white stays one — foam does not scale. Move up a glass: rocks → double rocks, coupe → wine glass.
- Already-tall drinks (Hurricane, Queen's Park Swizzle, Vesper): a double is two glasses. Don't put six ounces of rum in one Collins.
- Salt rims, sugar rims, and expressed peels do not double. One pass.
- Each recipe in this cart says which kind it is, and what the doubled pour looks like.
Shake vs stir
Juice, cream, egg, fruit — shake. Only spirits and vermouth — stir. Length with soda — build.
- Shake 10–15 seconds with ice, hard. The tin should frost. Fine-strain anything going into a coupe so you don't drink ice chips.
- Stir 20–30 seconds with ice in a mixing glass. You want it cold and a little diluted, still clear.
- A martini is stirred. Bond was wrong about the drink and right about the order. Shake a Vesper if you want it cloudy; stir if you want it to look like a martini.
- Build long drinks in the glass they will be drunk from. Don't shake tonic or soda — you'll kill the fizz and make a mess.
Ice
Ice is an ingredient. Warm, wet bags from the gas station water the drink before you start.
- Cubes for shaking, stirring, and most rocks drinks. One big cube in a Negroni or an old fashioned melts slower.
- Crushed for juleps, swizzles, Brambles, some tiki. It dilutes faster — the spec accounts for that.
- Up means no ice in the glass. Chill the glass (freezer, or ice and water while you mix, then dump).
- Shake with ice, then strain onto fresh ice. The shaking ice is used up.
Lemons and limes
Bottled juice is how a daiquiri dies. Squeeze when you mix.
- A typical lime gives ¾–1 oz. A lemon a little more. Roll it on the board first.
- The sour template is 2 oz spirit, ¾ oz citrus, ¾ oz sugar. Taste. Some fruit is meaner. Move the sugar ¼ oz at a time.
- Peel is oil, not juice. Express it over the drink (pinch the peel skin-out over the glass), then drop or discard.
- A wheel is garnish. A wedge is for squeezing. Don't mix them up on a G&T.
Syrup, honey, agave
Sugar in a cold drink has to already be liquid.
- Simple syrup: 1:1 white sugar and water, shake until it dissolves. Fridge, two weeks.
- Rich simple: 2:1. Use two-thirds as much as 1:1.
- Honey syrup: 3:1 honey to hot water so it pours. Raw honey in cold gin clumps.
- Agave: 1:1 agave nectar and water for Tommy's. Straight nectar sinks in a clump.
- Orgeat and coconut cream are loud. A quarter-ounce of orgeat is a flavor. An ounce is dessert.
Bitters, berries, salt
Small things that change the drink more than another half-ounce of vodka.
- Angostura is the brown bottle. Two dashes in a sour, a mule, a rum old fashioned. It shakes pink with citrus.
- Peychaud's is anise and red. Orange bitters belong in a martini and a gin drink that wants a peel.
- Berries: press, don't pulverize. Four raspberries. Strain if you don't want seeds in a coupe.
- Salt rim: half the glass so they can choose each sip. Wet with lime, dip. Tajín is the spicy margarita rim.
Glass and tools
You need a jigger, a shaker, a strainer, a spoon, a press. The rest is nice.
- Coupe or Nick & Nora for anything served up. Rocks for short and stirred. Highball or Collins for anything with a mixer. Wine glass for spritzes. Copper mug for mules.
- A double moves up a size: rocks to double rocks, coupe to wine glass, highball to Collins. Flutes don't double — pour two.
- Boston tin-on-tin shakes colder than a cobbler. A Hawthorne strainer fits the tin. Fine-strain sours.
- Don't muddle mint into bitterness. Slap it, press once, move on.
When it tastes wrong
Too sour, too sweet, too hot, too flat. Fix it with the next quarter-ounce, not a new drink.
- Too sour: ¼ oz syrup. Too sweet: ¼ oz citrus, or a dash of bitters, or a pinch of salt.
- Too hot (too much spirit): ice, a splash of soda or juice, or accept that you poured a double in a single glass.
- Too flat: you shook the soda, used warm tonic, or let the ice sit in the drink for twenty minutes. Build a new one.
- Too bitter: you poured Campari like it was Aperol. Cut with vermouth, orange, or a splash of simple — or pick a different drink.
- Cream drinks break if you add citrus. Don't.
Order of operations
Rim first. Then mix. Then garnish. Then serve. The other way around you salt the counter.
- Chill the glass. Rim it if the drink wants salt or sugar. Set it down.
- Measure into the tin in this order: spirit, liqueur, citrus, syrup, bitters. Egg last so it doesn't sit on acid.
- Shake or stir. Strain. Garnish. Hand it over.
- For a spritz: ice in the glass, wine, bitter, soda. Fruit in. Don't stir the bubbles dead.
What to keep on the cart
You don't need forty bottles. You need a base in each family, three liqueurs, citrus, sugar, bitters.
- Bases: a clean vodka (Tito's, Ketel One), a London dry gin (Tanqueray, Beefeater, Ford's), a blanco tequila (Espolòn, Altos), a light rum and a dark rum (Plantation 3 Stars, Gosling's), a brut prosecco and a dry white.
- Liqueurs that unlock the most drinks: Cointreau, Campari, a coffee liqueur, sweet and dry vermouth (in the fridge), St-Germain or cassis.
- Always: lemons, limes, simple syrup, Angostura, soda, tonic, ginger beer.
- Vermouth and wine go in the fridge after opening. Two weeks for vermouth. Sparkling dies in a day — drink it.