Bartending Techniques I: Shaken, not Stirred
In its simplest terms, making a cocktail involves mixing ingredients while adjusting their temperature. The two primary techniques to achieve both of these things are shaking and stirring. In this lesson we’ll be looking at how to shake a drink.
Shaking a drink requires adding your ingredients and ice into your shaker and rocking everything back and forth. As you shake, ice breaks into a lot of tiny pieces which will begin diluting and in turn reducing the temperature of the drink.
Shaking for a longer period of time than necessary won’t continue chilling down the drink, but it will continue adding water into the mixture.
Shaking a cocktail also creates texture – when you shake, you’ll add air bubbles. Spirits alone won’t hold this texture for too long when shaken, but fruit or vegetable juices will.
Thinking about Ice
Chilling, Dilution and Texture will be dependent on the type of ice you use to shake.
A big cube of ice will create more foam (air bubbles) than a small one. However, it will be harder to break it into the small pieces of ice that chill down the drink, so it will take longer to bring down the temperature of the mixture.
Conversely, shaking with a lot of very small ice cubes will chill a drink very quickly but it will be easier to reach the point where you’re over-diluting your drink.
In order to achieve the optimum level of chilling and texture,you can combine both approaches: Use one big cube of ice (2 inch³ / 5cm³) and two little cubes. These will get you great chilling and dilution while also producing a prolific amount of bubbles.
Straining
Once a cocktail is properly chilled, we want to stop that dilution – this is where straining comes in.
Straining will filter out the remaining ice, as well as any unwanted bits like small pieces of fruit. Proper straining is key to providing a cocktail which will not be overly diluted, has good presentation and ultimately, will be enjoyable to drink.
Depending on the type of shaker and strainer you have, you'll filter the cocktail using a particular technique. Here are two popular ones:
Closed Gate Pour
Place a Hawthorne strainer on top of your shaker and close the gate by pressing down on the lid. Tilt the shaker and let the liquid go through the small holes in the strainer.
The spring on the strainer will take care of the filtering process. The tighter the springs on your strainer, the more efficient it'll be at trapping small pieces of ice.
Double-strain (with an open gate)
As the name implies, we'll be filtering the liquid through two strainers with this technique. The first strainer will be either the Hawthorne (with an open gate), or the built in strainer in a Cobbler shaker. The second one will be a tea strainer.
Place the tea strainer on top of the glass and run the liquid through both strainers.
Putting it all Together
Now that you know some of the theory behind shaking, let’s practice by chilling some water. We'll split the instructions depending on what type of shaker you have:
With a Boston Shaker:
Place both tins in front of you, side by side.
Add 4 oz / 120ml of water to the small tin.
We use the small tin to add ingredients because it will ensure we never add more liquid than our shaker can handle.
If you go beyond that amount, you risk it opening as you shake.
Transfer everything from the small tin to the big tin.
Place the small tin on top, at a slight angle. The bottom of the small tin should line up with the big tin.
Tap the bottom of the small tin to seal it.
Raise the shaker up to shoulder level, with one hand close on the bottom, and the other holding the top tin, to ensure the shaker doesn’t open.
Start shaking slowly, transferring the contents from one end of the shaker to the other. After two or three seconds, the temperature inside your shaker will drop and create a pressurized seal which will prevent it from opening.
Shake harder for another 7-8 seconds, the ice in the tin should be smashing into each end of the shaker.
Open your shaker: Tap the top of the large tin, where the two tins meet, with the bottom of your palm.
This should allow some air to go into the shaker, which will break the seal and let you open it.
Grab a glass and set it in front of you.
Strain your cocktail using one of the two techniques described in the previous section.
With a Cobbler Shaker:
Open the shaker and place the mixing tin in front of you.
Add 4oz / 120ml of water.
Raise the shaker up to shoulder level with one hand close on the bottom, and the other holding the top, to ensure the shaker doesn’t open.
Start shaking slowly, transferring the contents from one end of the shaker to the other. After two or three seconds, the temperature inside your shaker will drop and create a pressurized seal which will prevent it from opening.
Shake harder for another 7-8 seconds, the ice in the tin should be smashing into each end of the shaker.
Grab a glass and set it in front of you.
Open the strainer cap.
Place a Tea strainer over the glass and pour the water into it.
Closing Thoughts
When it comes to your shaking technique, it's important that you do it in a way that is comfortable for you. As long as you're rocking the mixture back and forth with sufficient force, you should be okay.
After following the instructions you should have a glass of water that has been chilled and contains no small pieces of ice in it. As you might expect, the amount of water in your glass is more than the one you put in initially, as some of the ice melted.
Dave Arnold, in his book Liquid Intelligence, defines the Fundamental Law of Traditional Cocktails as:
The two are inextricably linked. As we delve deeper into other bartending techniques, we will learn ways in which we can control the amount of dilution that goes into a cocktail.
You've successfully learned how to properly shake and strain a drink!