Instead of short movements that shake the ice as hard as possible, soft shakes move just enough to hit the ice on either end of the shaker. Soft shakes are ideal for cocktails with light ingredients that could be stirred but are preferred shaken.
The hard shake usually follows a three-point pattern, starting with the first shake at face level, then collar bone level, then heart level. The back-and-forth movement should cause the ice to roll within the tin in a figure-eight motion.
The dry shake is shaking the drink without ice, and the wet shake is with ice added. If you've ever had a Pisco Sour or White Lady, then you've had a cocktail where this type of shake was used. Some bartenders shake in the reverse order, but most dry-shake first and then shake with ice.
What are the benefits of shaking a cocktail over stirring? Drinks will be chilled and dilute in a shorter amount of time. Shaking also provides smoother texture and a bit of froth due to aeration. This texture and foam are desirable in, say, a daiquiri, but not a martini.
There are five different methods for shaking: the Standard Shake, the Double Shake, the Dry Shake, the Reverse Dry Shake, and the Hard Shake. There are two common types of cocktail shaker - the two-piece Boston Shaker and the three-piece Cobbler.
Cocktails that should be shaken are ones that contain dairy, cream liqueurs, fruit juices, eggs, or sour mix. These drinks get a better balance of flavor and alcohol when there is more diluting involved.
Essentially, that means shake when you're mixing booze with anything that isn't booze. A vigorous shake thoroughly combines alcoholic and nonalcoholic ingredients while quickly chilling a cocktail and incorporating air. The end result is a light and frothy drink that's uniform all the way to the last sip.
You might see ice chips floating around from aggressively shaking the cubes. Shaking creates this effect by breaking up the ice and chilling the cocktail, while also sloshing all of that delicious boozy mixture around. It makes for a frothy sipper rather than a velvety one.
Don't Shake Too Hard or Too Gently
"You don't want to shake super hard like a maniac because then all the ice will chip and the cocktail gets over diluted," says Reipenoff. "But you don't want to shake it too lightly, either, where the drink isn't diluted at all and it's not cold enough.
Tips for Shaken Cocktails
Don't over-shake, or you'll over dilute. With small ice cubes or “slushy” ones (a bit watery, not super frozen), cut your shake time down accordingly.
The soft shake is mellower than the hard shake. Instead of short movements that shake the ice as hard as possible, soft shakes move just enough to hit the ice on either end of the shaker. Soft shakes are ideal for cocktails with light ingredients that could be stirred but are preferred shaken.
To perform a dirty pour, a bartender will typically use a jigger or a small measuring cup to control the amount of ingredients being added to the cocktail glass. The bartender will then slowly and carefully pour the leftover ingredients over the back of a bar spoon, creating a layered effect in the glass.
A milkshake (sometimes simply called a shake) is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit, nuts, or seeds into a thick, sweet, cold mixture.
Too much milk can leave the shake overly thick, resembling something closer to ice cream instead. On the flip side, not using enough milk can result in a shake that has little to no consistency, akin to a kind of sugary syrup.
While both methods work very well, from personal experience we've found that a reverse dry shake will usually produce more foam, as the bubbles are larger, but with a less creamy texture. If you're looking for a Ramos Gin Fizz with more drama, this may be a technique worth trying out.
At its most basic, shaking is about mixing, chilling and diluting a cocktail (typically one containing “cloudy” ingredients, such as juice, cream or egg white) by agitating it with plenty of ice. But shaking is also what gives a drink its texture—meaning that a shake can help aerate, emulsify and integrate ingredients.
Shaking a cocktail with ice allows the ingredients to fully mix and chill as well as diluting slightly to get the perfect consistency and taste. Many bartenders were already “mixing drinks” in by the mid 1800s, by simply pouring the ingredients back and forth between two glasses, but this was messy, as you can imagine!
Almost all the classic drinks you know and love, from the Daiquiri to the Gimlet or the Margarita come down to the same basic ratio: 2:1:1. That's two parts spirit, one part sweet, and one part sour, commonly known as the Golden Ratio.
When you shake a gin martini you are not only chilling it, you are injecting air into it, diluting it in ice, and agitating and breaking down the botanicals. A shaken gin martini will be muddled and devoid of the crisp complexity so indicative of the drink.
The main difference between shaking and stirring is that stirred cocktails should receive as little aeration as possible in order to yield a silky, semi-viscous elixir; typically, this means that all of the ingredients in the stirred cocktail are clear and free from the particles you'd find in citrus juices and so on.
DO NOT shake an Old Fashioned, always stir it. This has nothing to do with temperature but everything to do with texture. Shaking it will add air and water, diluting the cocktail too quickly. Since the drink is primarily spirit, all you have to do is gently stir with ice, allowing for a smooth, velvety texture.
Why stir then? Stirring merely chills and dilutes a cocktail whereas shaking additionally changes its texture. The ice, being violently shaken about inside the shaker, also aerates the drink with tiny air bubbles, which are held in suspension in the liquid, giving the cocktail a cloudy appearance.
While exact times vary depending on the drink, you're usually in good territory if you stir a drink for 30–45 seconds. That's long enough for the drink to reach its ideal temperature where dilution mostly levels off. Some bars insist a perfect martini must be stirred 60–75 seconds, while others opt for less.
When the ingredients of a drink are shaken, they are blended more thoroughly, to ensure a consistent taste while enjoying the libation. In addition, the air bubbles created by the shaking offer a light, frothy drink and helps avoid layers of different flavors in multi-ingredient drinks.