Bar Technique

Where it started

Shaking grew out of "rolling" or "throwing," pouring a drink back and forth between two vessels, and was established in the United States by the 1840s, once iced drinks were common.¹ The first recorded shaker use is from New York in 1850, a bartender working with a tin cup over a glass.¹⁴ The first stainless steel mixing tins arrived in 1919.¹⁴ Jiggers replaced sherry and liqueur glasses as measures in the 1870s.¹¹ The Hawthorne strainer takes its name from the Hawthorne Café in Boston, whose manager had the holes in an 1892 patented spring strainer arranged to spell the name.¹⁰

Where and how it's made

Shake or stir. The rule of thumb: shake a drink if it contains fresh, nonalcoholic ingredients such as citrus, dairy, fruit or herbs, or more simply, if it's cloudy.¹ Stir drinks made only of alcohol-based ingredients, such as the Manhattan, Old-Fashioned and Martini, to keep them clear and silky.² As Kazuo Uyeda put it, shaking takes the bite off alcohol and stirring leaves it in.²

How long. Shaking chills and dilutes faster, so 8 to 12 seconds is typical.¹ Stirring typically takes 15 to 30 seconds.² Simon Difford puts it another way: 15 to 20 seconds of shaking matches 90 to 120 seconds of stirring for chill and dilution.⁵

Dilution. Ice chills almost entirely by melting, which is why it outperforms anything that does not melt, and why chilling and dilution are linked.³⁴ Melting a gram of ice takes 80 calories, against 9 to warm it from freezer temperature to its melting point.⁴ The amount of ice decides how cold a drink can get; the surface area decides how fast.⁴ Difford measures roughly 25 percent dilution from a shake and about 20 percent from a stir with his ice.⁶

Ratios. Proportions let you scale a recipe without losing balance; a classic sour once ran 22 ml sour, 30 ml sweet and 45 ml strong, and now often 22 sour, 22 sweet, 60 strong.¹⁹

Eggs. A dry shake, without ice and followed by a shake with ice, helps egg white foam; bartender Chad Solomon popularized it in the early 2000s.⁸

How to taste it

Taste through a straw or a spoon before you pour. Underdiluted drinks taste hot; overdiluted ones taste flabby. Fill the shaker two-thirds with fresh ice and hold it with both hands.⁷ Pairings: a Daiquiri with ceviche, a Manhattan with cheddar.

Styles and what the label means

• Boston and French shakers — a tin paired with a glass (Boston) or with a smaller tin (French).⁷
• Cobbler shaker — three pieces with a built-in strainer and cap; Hauck's 1884 patent became the style bars and homes widely adopted.¹³¹⁴
• Double strain — a Hawthorne or julep strainer plus a fine mesh strainer, to catch herbs, pulp and ice chips.⁹
• Rolling — pouring between tins to chill without aerating, traditional for tomato juice.²⁰
• Float — a layer poured over the back of a spoon on top of a drink.²¹
• Hard shake — Kazuo Uyeda's triangular shaking style; Dave Arnold found no measurable advantage.²²
• Recipes to practice on. cocktail-families →