Build in glass over ice (practical)
- Fill the glass with ice to the brim.
- Add required ingredients by pouring over the ice straight into the glass. There is usually an order that the ingredients should be poured as it will affect the cocktails appearance.
- Add straws and swizzle stick (Always serve a swizzle stick with built cocktails)
- Garnish and serve on a napkin.
Shake and strain (practical)
Be careful not to over shake or over stir a drink – this will over dilute the drink and affect the overall flavor (when you over dilute it it’s called bruising the drink).
- Place approximately one ice scoop of ice into your Boston mixing glass. (Always build your cocktail in the glass as you cannot overfill this and keep an eye on the overall colour of the drink)
- Add required ingredients (in any order).
- Cover “cap” with Boston tin.
- Shake with short sharp movements above your shoulder until the shaker has frosted. Once you have finished shaking the cocktails, you will have to give the Boston shaker a hard tap with your hand to loosen it as the drop in temperature inside the shaker causes a vacuum and sucks the glass in.
- Using a Hawthorne strainer, Strain into appropriate glass, e.g. cocktail glass.
- Garnish, straws and serve on napkin.
Blended (practical):
Blending is considered a “dying form” of creating cocktails but many of the classics are made using this method.
When blending a drink you should try to get it an even /consistent texture, to do this you should prevent over blending (makes the drink runny and it tends to separate almost immediately after pouring) and prevent under blending (leaves chunks of ice in the drink).
- Place 1 and a half scoops of ice into blender.
- Add all your ingredients remembering to pour over the ice as this “softens” the cubes
- Blend until desired consistency is achieved, a good way to see if your drink is ready is if the liquid slush starts to fold into itself as opposed to the whirlpool effect.
- Pour directly from the blender into appropriate glass, e.g. cocktail glass.
- Garnish, straws and serve on a napkin.
Muddle (practical)
- Add all of your raw ingredients (Modifiers eg. Limes, lemons etc) into a Boston mixing glass
- Muddle the contents by crushing (pressing them on the bottom of the glass). This releases the natural flavours of the ingredients.
- Add one scoop of ice to the mixing glass
- Add your base and modifiers, mixers into the Boston glass over ice (this dilutes the liquors slightly)
- Cap with the Boston glass and shake or build, whichever the recipe calls for.
- Remove Boston glass from the Boston tin and pour directly into serving glass (do not strain the cocktail, unless the recipe calls for it, as the raw ingredients look great in the drink)
- Garnish, straws and serve on a napkin
Stirred Drinks
Few cocktails are required to be stirred before serving; this is generally done by the client at their table as in the case of built drinks but some of the better known classics call for a bit of a stir! Stirred drinks could be either stirred in the Boston tin or glass, or in the glass that the drink will be served in depending on the recipe
Layered Drinks
Layering a drink is done by pouring 2 or more ingredients into a glass (no ice) such that the liquor is separate and floats on one another, due to the different density. There are different methods in layering but the most useful one – use a bar spoon.
The recipe will have the correct order to pour in – but remember that cream is light and floats, grenadine usually sinks. Traditionally layered drinks are known as “pousse café”
HINT: chill the glass as this helps keep the ingredients separate.
Other factors
- Blending flavours / separating flavours – lemon separated & sugar blends flavours molecules
- Ice/cooking – when you mix fresh fruit, ice and alcohol it’s like putting food on the stove: it extracts flavors from the fruit and blends them into the drink
- Dilution- dilution can have positive and negative effects on a drink as it does change the flavour.