“The purpose of the shake is to chill the drink and add dilution, ideally with as much control and consistency as possible,” says Brendan Bartley, the head bartender and beverage director at New York City's Bathtub Gin.
Occasionally, too, a shake is developed specifically to protect a bartender from injury. In fact, some drink-makers have deliberately adjusted their signatures over time for this reason.
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. Importantly, shaking mixes certain ingredients together that, if stirred, would separate by the time you drink them.
You're Holding the Shaker Wrong
“If you take that baseball and throw it against the wall, it has a lot more impact.” So shaking a cocktail horizontally is more effective than doing so vertically. “The motion of shaking up and down is only moving the ingredients together,” he adds.
Fill the shaker with ice (some bartenders do this before pouring). Secure the lid or shaker tin. Hold the shaker with both hands (one on each piece) and shake vigorously in a horizontal motion over your shoulder. Shake for a slow count of ten or until the outside of the shaker frosts up.
Some bartenders perform a reverse dry shake where the drink is first shaken with ice but without the egg white or aquafaba. The ice is subsequently removed, egg white is added and the drink shaken again without ice.
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.
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.
Hold the jigger between your index and middle finger or between your middle and ring finger to have a better pour just from flipping your hand. Holding the jigger any other way will put your hand in an awkward position.
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.
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.
To keep it short, bartenders pour drinks from high up for show and for fun. There is no technical reason why pouring a drink from a height is better than pouring it nearer the glass. However, many bartenders opt to “put on a show” to increase their tips.
Among the many faux pas, don't ever yell, click your fingers — or even wave them. Bartenders hate that.
If a drink is made with all spirits, it's stirred, not shaken. Drinks like Martinis, Manhattans, and Old Fashioneds are made with all spirits.
Gin is one of the common alcoholic drinks that can get you drunk quickly. It has a high percentage of alcohol content (usually at least 40% ABV, sometimes as strong as 60%, dubbed 'Navy Stremgth') which makes it rank as one of the contenders to get you drunk within a very short period of time.
Why Do People Light Shots on Fire? It warms the drink. Fire, as most of us are aware, is hot. The upshot of this is that briefly lighting a drink on fire will bring up its ambient temperature.
You should shake each cocktail vigorously for 15 to 20 seconds. "You might start to feel the ice breaking up, and you can feel the temperature when the tin starts to get frosty, so use your instincts," she says.
How Long Should a Cocktail Be Stirred? The general rule is to stir a cocktail for at least 30 seconds, or about 50 rotations around the glass. You can stir for longer—some bartenders prefer to stir martinis for a full minute or more.
The purpose of stirring a cocktail, as opposed to shaking, is to agitate the ice as little as possible so the drink has a smooth and even texture without any air bubbles.
A “dry shake” refers to shaking ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice. Any recipe containing egg requires a dry shake. This ensures that the egg white combines with the other ingredients, and results in a nice, frothy texture.
It's called the “regal shake.” Drop a bit of citrus peel into a cocktail shaker to add a hint of bitterness without bitters, citrusy aroma without juice, complexity without additional ingredients. Theo Lieberman, now head sommelier at Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, is credited as the originator of the hack.
In the Classic Dry Shake, you do the Dry Shake (no-ice) first, and then add ice and shake to chill. The Reverse Dry Shake is exactly how it sounds. You first shake with ice, strain the ice out, and shake again.
It simply means dumping the entire contents of a cocktail shaker, ice and all, into a glass and serving it as is.