Bartending Techniques III: There's more than one way to shake a cat

As you continue exploring cocktail recipes, you’ll soon find out that they start calling for particular shaking techniques you might not have heard of before. This is because depending on the ingredients and the type of drink you’re making, you may want to combine things in a particular way to achieve different results.

Let’s take a look at some of these techniques:

Dry Shake

Dry shaking is mainly used for cocktails that use egg whites. Its name stems from the fact that you shake all ingredients without ice first, allowing the mixture to combine without any dilution. Dry shaking allows you to create thick foams and a velvety texture.

Dry shaking is usually done for about 10 seconds. Ice is then added and you shake again to chill the drink as usual.

Note that when you dry shake there’s no temperature drop and, consequently, no pressure seal forms inside your shaker.

Take special care in holding the tins together as you shake to prevent them from breaking apart.

As we learned in the previous lesson, acid plays a key role in denaturing egg whites. Some bartenders prefer mixing the egg whites and the juice (or whatever contains acid in the recipe) alone first, to maximize this process as much as possible.

Some recipes, such as the Ramos Gin Fizz, call for long dry shaking times in order to create really thick foams that can actually rise above the top of the glass and hold their shape.

When doing the 2nd round of shaking, now with ice, some bartenders prefer doing so with one big cube of ice only, or with a very small quantity of pebble / crushed ice. The use of either maximizes aeration. This is often referred to as a whip shake.

It’s of particular importance to double-strain your cocktail when using egg whites, otherwise all those tiny shards of ice will pop the air bubbles and destroy the foam you worked so hard to create.

If you have trouble keeping the tins together when dry shaking, consider using a milk frother instead. It’ll do the same (if not a better) job of creating your foam and combining everything together. Just do a regular shake with ice afterwards.

Reverse Dry Shake

Reverse dry shaking is very similar to dry shaking, except you shake with ice first, dump the ice and shake without it a second time.

Some people prefer the reverse dry shake over the regular dry shake. From our testing, we believe it creates a taller foam which has more air bubbles in it, but it does it at the cost of a less creamy texture. Since it creates a different result, we think it’s still a valid technique to learn, ready to be applied when the need calls for it.

Here’s a video from Leandro from The Educated Barfly comparing both techniques:

The Reverse Dry Shake Myth Part Deux: Revelations - The Great Barfly Shake-off

Whip Shake

As we described before, a whip shake consists of shaking a drink with either a small amount of crushed or pebble ice or with a single big cube. Many bartenders use this technique for drinks where a creamy texture is required, or to maximize the amount of foam you produce.

If you’re using the crushed or pebble ice, simply shake the drink until you can no longer hear the ice clanking inside your tin.

Whip shakes are also called for in drinks that are served over crushed ice. The point is that since they’ll be served in ice that will melt quicker, you want to minimize the amount of dilution that goes into the cocktail before serving it.

Regal Shake

In order to perform a Regal Shake, you simply need to include citrus peels or even the spent shells from citrus you pressed into the shaker before mixing everything. The idea here is that when you shake you will extract all the essential oils from the peel and in turn change the texture and flavor of the drink.

Limes, for instance, will bring just a touch of bitterness, enough to make the cocktail more complex. Other citrus peels, such as grapefruit, can pull back on the perceived sweetness in a drink.

Regal Shakes with grapefruit peel pair extremely well with recipes that include honey syrup.

Blender Shake

Not to be confused with a blended drink (we’ll cover those in a future lesson), Jeffrey Morgenthaler proposes that, particularly at home, instead of using shaking tins, you can shake a drink by using a single ice cube around 1in³ in size.

The drink will not be overdiluted, because you’re controlling how much water goes in it, and you’ll let the blender do all the hard work for you.

Protip: Why this bartender doesn't use a cocktail shaker (feat. Jeffrey Morgenthaler)

Drinks that have egg white probably benefit considerably from all the aeration the blender blades will introduce, but you have to be careful not to blend on such a high setting that you start heating up the mixture.

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