How To Mix Every Cocktail | Method Mastery | Epicurious

[Music] hi my name is jeff i'm a bartender at dutch kills in new york city and today i'm going to show you [Music] how to mix every cocktail and by every cocktail we mean not every cocktail because that would be insane today we're going to focus on classic cocktails these are the drinks from the 19th and early 20th century that are still popular today these are the basic tools i use when i'm mixing drinks boston shaker i use them because it gives me a little bit more control they're easier to op

en and you get a frothier drink at the end strainers this is a hawthorne strainer this is a julep strainer this is a fine mesh strainer like to use it for straining out finer shards of ice so you get a really nice smooth shaking cocktail at the end bar spoon you need these for stirring your stir drinks also the bar spoon itself is a measurement for small portions jiggers the bartender's measuring cup this is your muddler necessary for mashing to get essential oils out or to dissolve sugar into a

drink like an old fashioned i can't stress this enough good ice is extremely important for making a good cocktail you can have great quality alcohol beautiful fresh juices and then you put a piece of smelly ice from your freezer into a drink and it's just going to taste like your freezer so what i recommend is to pick up a bag of ice from a grocery store before you're making drinks to make nicer ice in a silicone mold at home or if you live in a major city there's an ice company in most places

they'll be happy to furnish you with big dense cubes like this old-fashioned to make an old-fashioned we're going to build it in the glass first we start with a white sugar cube three to four good dashes of bitters just a small drop of soda water to help the bitters and sugar cube dissolve when we muddle it whiskey could be bourbon or rye the most traditional is bourbon and it's what i'm using for this ice for an old fashioned i like to use as big of a piece as ice as possible to fit in the glas

s reduce the surface area between the ice and the rest of the drink so we're slowing down the melting of the ice and we can hold on to our drink for longer and lower that in with the bar spoon so we don't splash everywhere you don't really want to over stir an old fashion and traditionally this gets the rabbit ears garnish which is a orange and lemon twist so i like to express all the essential oils out of that twist and crisscross this is the old fashioned the classic of classic cocktails when

the word cocktail first came about it was really just defined as spirit with water sugar and bitters and those are the primary ingredients in the drink manhattan first thing you'll need is a chilled pint glass bitters in one ounce sweet vermouth to two ounces rye whiskey and as always we're adding all of our spirits before ice starting with the least expensive ingredient first you can use any blend object to crack ice i'm using the back of a steel muddler in this case for great control you can e

ven just use a tablespoon from your kitchen and now we stir this actually will take a second you can sing a song in your head something i like to do a quick taste and temperature check it's getting cold chilled coop again every ingredient should be as cold as possible to keep your drink as cold as long as possible this is a luxardo cherry the kind of bright red maraschino cherries you see in a lot of bars were based on this really really tasty highly recommend finding them if you can for stir dr

inks i'll use a julep strainer because it fits better into the pine glass this is manhattan legend has it it was developed at the famous manhattan club in the 1870s it's the probably second most popular cocktail right after the old fashion still to this day whiskey sour to make a whiskey sour we need fresh lemon juice probably the single quickest easiest thing you can do to improve the quality of your drinks is using fresh juice whenever possible the simple syrup is equal parts regular white sug

ar and water dissolved and two ounces of whiskey so what makes this whiskey sour traditional is the addition of egg white for a foamy top so for any drink containing an egg white the first step is a dry shake before we actually get to shaking the drink with ice this is called the dry shake because it doesn't have any ice in it this is usually when you talk to your customers and then they tell you their problems all right so our first step is complete you can see the egg white is already nice and

frothy so now we'll add our ice carefully into the shaken drink softer shakes right now i'm cooling down the temperature in the shaker and it's creating a better seal between the two cans now that i feel the shaker is cool enough i can create an airtight seal in the boston shaker and really go for use a large chilled coop for this this is the hawthorne strainer which fits this kind of shaker best and as a garnish do a little decoration with our angostura bitters i'm drawing a line through the b

itters to make a nice little feathered pattern and this is your traditional whiskey sour i love whiskey sours i also love making them for people that have never tried them before because people aren't always into the idea of egg whites at first and then when you hand one to them it they'll taste that it's just ethereal and fluffy and not eggy at all sazerac start off with a chilled glass shaker white sugar cube we're going to douse this sugar cube with a good amount of pesos bitters which is the

only bitters that makes us a traditional sazerac and as we do whenever we have to dissolve a sugar cube we add just a little drop of soda water not a lot and now we muddle don't be afraid to really go for it because you don't want your sugar to be dissolved take out your aggression two ounces of rye and crack away spoon all the way to the bottom so while this azerax sits on ice we're going to give our glass an absinthe rinse we like to put absinthe into one of these atomizer bottles so the trad

itional garnish for sazerac is a lemon twist now some people like to serve the lemon with the drink some people just like to express the essential oils from the lemon and discard the lemon i don't want to make anyone mad so what we do at the bar is put the lemon twist on the inside of the rim that way people have the option of kind of having the twist or not a sazerac is special because it's one of the first cocktails that used absinthe as a aromatic just to lend a last bit of almost seasoning t

o a drink whiskey fix we're going to start with eagle parts fresh lemon juice and simple syrup two ounces of whiskey bourbon or rye works well for this i'm using bourbon we're just going to do what we call a whip on this drink which is just shaking with a small piece of ice and with this we're just trying to lightly chill down the drink basically until the piece of ice dissolves [Music] chill double rocks glass for this we're going to use crushed ice and i recommend going to a fast food restaura

nt or a fish market and begging them to give you their crushed ice because it's the best for this steel straw i use steel straws because metal straws are good for the environment but even more so it's also really good for conducting the cold temperature of the drink the fix gets two garnishes a lemon wedge and a luxardo cherry and here you are your classic whiskey fix a fixes any cocktail that consists of lemon juice simple syrup and a spirit you can also muddle fresh fruit into a fix for season

ality who doesn't love seasons boulevardier as always we're going to start off with our least expensive ingredients first we have our sweet vermouth campari which is a must for a boulevardier and bourbon and give this guy a good stir and we'll take a chilled coop a bilivarti can also be served on the rocks but straight up is standard and the traditional garnish and orange twist this is one of my favorite cocktails the boulevardier which is often thought of as a cousin to the classic negroni so t

hey both share sweet vermouth and campari as to the three base ingredients with a bowl of variety it's whiskey instead of gin presbyterian the presbyterian is my favorite in a category of drinks called a buck which is a lime juice ginger spirit drink so moscow mule kentucky mule all examples of bucks so to start half ounce of lime juice fresh and for maximum ginger flavor we like to use fresh ginger juice presbyterian is made with rye we're going to whip shake this with a small piece of ice just

to get the base mixture chilled down slightly i like to add the first bit of soda water into the can that way we get a slight bit of carbonation that helps mix the soda into the drink as you're pouring it out and my secret weapon once again big ice and top with more soda water and i like to top these with a little crystallized ginger candy just so it gives people a little hint of what they're about to drink this is a presbyterian the platonic ideal of a whiskey ginger blinker use a half ounce o

f grenadine for this grandine is probably my favorite cocktail syrup it's made from a concentrated fresh pomegranate juice sweetened with sugar adding to that an ounce of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and two ounces of rye what i love about the blinker is that there aren't that many citrusy refreshing drinks that people think about when they think about rye whiskey and this is really one of those one big rock for shaking hawthorne strainer this is the blinker a shaken rye cocktail originated p

robably around the mid to late 1940s appears in one of the great cocktail books of all time the fine art of mixing drinks improved whiskey cocktail start off with peshawad's bitters and just a bar spoon of absinthe a half ounce of luxardo maraschino this was made available in america in the 19th century and became a very popular sweetener as an alternative to sugar hence the improved whiskey cocktail as opposed to an old fashioned which just used white sugar and this drink gets a lot of rye big

rock i'm trying to just get a little bit of ice down so that it fits in the tapered bottom of the glass and just like with the old fashioned you don't need to over stir this drink and a nice lemon twist with this guy this is the improved whiskey cocktail this whiskey cocktail thinks it's better than other whiskey cocktails and it's right monte carlo let's start with angostura bitters as so many old-fashioned variations do instead of sugar this gets a herbal and slightly sweetened kick from bened

ictine liqueur this is a drink bartenders love to make because it has three ingredients in it and it's very fast and very good this is rye whiskey big rock in glass and we'll give this a judicious stir so the herbal qualities of the benedictine go really nicely with a lemon twist one of the most popular riffs on an old fashioned the delightful monte carlo named after a brave man named carlo who climbed the mountain i'm kidding it's named after the city of monte carlo mint julep first things firs

t we need a lot of mint for a mint julep so what i do is use the bottom leaves off of a sprig of mint save the tops for garnish and i'm going to put about maybe 15 or 16 nice fresh mint leaves into the bottom of the glass so the mince a little bit sweetened with a little bit of sugar to start the abrasion process going to get those mint oils out and then a little bit of simple syrup to provide the rest of the necessary sweetness so i'm using the muddler here i don't want to over muddle the drink

either but just get it crushed up enough and while i'm doing this i'm also spreading the mint around the inside of the glass as well two and a half ounces of bourbon if you please i'm gonna fill this julep tin up about two thirds of the way with crushed ice so we're gonna swizzle the drink which is just to lightly combine a drink on crushed ice it gets that crushed ice a little further down into the glass making room for more add our straw in now which is much easier than if you do it after all

the ice is in there and we take the prettiest looking mint we have i like to lightly tap the mint against my hand to just get the aromas coming out of the mint leaves and give a nice mint flourish though i don't know when this tradition began it is a really nice addition to a min julep to finish it off with a slight drizzle of jamaican rum and there's your mint julep the official cocktail of the kentucky derby legally speaking if you say the phrase i do declare you're supposed to be holding a m

int julep [Music] martini chilled pint glass more than anything else you want a cold martini standard martini spec is one ounce vermouth to two ounces gin i like to go with a london dry gin and now we're adding some dense ice all the way up to the top with ice chilled coop glass for our very cold martini julep strainer crystal clear and very cold there are two common garnishes for martini it could either be olives or a lemon twist this is a gin martini with a twist obviously one of the most belo

ved classic drinks of all time and one of the ones that spawn the most variations this one is the standard martinez again in a chilled pine glass start off with orange bitters so traditionally this drink calls for equal parts sweet vermouth and old tom jin and you'll notice that it is not clear like most gin that's uh because either the gin has been aged in a barrel or has had malt added to it and to that some nice cracked ice there are fights over how to garnish this drink in this case the figh

t is lemon or orange twist go lemon this is the martinez it's often thought of as the predecessor to the martini biggest difference between the two is that this is made with sweet vermouth instead of dry vermouth gimlet gimlets were traditionally made with roses lime juice but we like them with fresh lime juice these days three quarter ounces of simple syrup and our standard two ounces of gin this one has a bit more of a peppery citrusy finish to it we've got our chilled coop and a nice big rock

for shaking i'll use two strainers both the hawthorne strainer and a fine mesh strainer to get those last bits of ice and that is a gimlet one of the oldest simplest and most refreshing gin cocktails gin ricky three very simple fresh ingredients just gin simple syrup and lime juice so a ricky is essentially a gimlet but with soda added served on ice and there's your gin ricky it's just a simple refreshing fizzy gin cocktail negroni classic negroni is just equal parts sweet vermouth from turin i

f at all possible london dry gin and campari nice large rock orange twist for this guy that's a negroni a classic italian cocktail one of the most refreshing things you could possibly drink corp survivor number two it's an equal parts drink you go parts lemon triple sec lilly blanc and gin we'll give our chilled coop a nice rinse of absinthe and finish that off with a generous lemon twist this is the corpse survivor number two a classic refreshing gin drink invented by harry craddock at the savo

y hotel in london aviation number one as for why it's the number one there's also a number two which doesn't contain the trademark ingredient of creme de violette creme de violet is a liqueur made from the violet flower but it isn't always available and when it became scarce the number two was invented echoing the presence of maraschino liqueur in the drink we're also adding a cherry to the bottom the weird and wonderful aviation number one if you ever see creme de violette in someone's bar and

wonder what it's used for this is it tom collins we use eagle parts lemon and sugar two ounces of our old tom gin and we whip a little bit of soda into the can and the classic garnish is a luxardo cherry and a beautiful orange wedge this is a tom collins similar to a gin ricky except this is made with lemon juice instead of lime ramos gin fizz for this our citrus is a split base of lemon juice and lime and for added complexity we also use a couple of drops of orange flour water simple syrup so w

hat makes a ramos gin fizz special is the meringue that forms from this drink and what makes the meringue extra fluffy as opposed to other egg white drinks is the addition of heavy cream two ounces of our gin egg white for a foamy top and it gets a particularly hard dry shake because we're really starting that meringue right now i'm gonna be doing this for a while so let's talk more about the ramos gin fizz it required so much work that initially this used to be a multi-person operation where on

e waiter would then hand this drink to another waiter and then hand the string to another waiter as they were going along all right well this is great we already have the beginning of our meringue forming down here now carefully drop our nice big shaking rock so you can see that our nice meringue is starting to form we're going to stick it into the freezer and let that set and we're back it's solidified a little bit from uh sitting in the freezer if you're a good bartender you stick your straw i

n and it should not move i guess i'm a good bartender [Music] take the fizziest seltzer you possibly can and pour it down the straw and that is your ramos gin fizz pretty much universally agreed upon as the hardest most work intensive drink to make from the great city of new orleans bramble a bramble is a variation on the fix so it's a crushed ice drink with lemon and sugar and spirit and before we add the spirit in so there isn't too much liquid in the glass we're going to muddle some berries i

n there right now and just try to make sure that you crush each one now we can add our two ounce pour of gin we're going to give this just a little dry shake to incorporate that gin straight into a chilled double rocks glass so nice we're gonna fill this up about two thirds of the way with crushed ice so they know what we're drinking this is a bramble a dangerously easy to drink gin number with citrus and fresh fruit 20th century this drink is a weird one and i like it it has lemon and chocolate

in it and it is very good trust me creme de cacao if you can spring a few extra dollars for the good stuff on this it makes a huge difference and a little goes a long way you'll have this forever using coke americano which is a aromatized fortified wine yeah just your classic lemon wine chocolate gin cocktail but for some reason it really works because we use both creme de cacao and this fortified wine this gets less than the usual two ounce pour of gin it only gets one and a half and with this

drink we also finish it with a lemon twist although most bars like to express the oils out of this lemon twist and then discard it this is a 20th century a uniquely flavored lemony chocolatey gin drink invented in 1930 which is in the 20th century these knees i love the bee's knees because it's sweetened with honey instead of sugar and it actually is the drink i make the most for friends when i'm scrounging around their kitchen looking for ingredients i can use for a cocktail i use a honey syru

p which is really just honey that's slightly thinned out with a little bit of hot water making it easier to pour and two ounces of gin this is the bee's knees one of the things i love about honey cocktails is that it creates a really nice foam on the top last word so in this case we're using eco parts fresh lime juice maraschino liqueur gin and green chartreuse which is very strong stuff so this drink is one of those bartender drinks that bartenders really love i think the last word is disgustin

g everybody else loves this drink with me i'm the crazy one and it's my job to please what a great order last word nice drink and garnish it with a cherry they're delicious to most people last word vodka martini santa martini always calls for driver mouth and either gin or vodka modern tastes for vodka martinis usually mean as dry as possible i'm going to go with just a drop although often it could be none at all and because the cocktail is usually about 3 ounces in total with the vodka martini

you'll usually get a slightly heavier pour than the usual two ounces of course the most popular variation of the vodka martini would be the dirty martini which involves olive brine added into it which is great if you like seawater and give this guy a good stir this should really feel pretty much frozen as with any vodka martini it could be served with either olives or a lemon twist this is a vodka martini i feel like i'm at a business power lunch just looking at it moscow mule so just like other

drinks in the buck family i'll have lime juice and our fresh ginger syrup and two ounces of vodka normally this is when you would take out the moscow mule mug but i am going to not use the mug for this because in my mind it leads to just a kind of diluted drink so i'm going to make this the way that i make all my other tall columns drinks and it's all glass with a nice big piece of ice so that you can enjoy the thing for a while add soda and that's a moscow mule bonus if you float bitters on to

p of a moscow mule that is now a headless horseman and it is delicious vesper i'm going to go with our cookie americano the original recipe called for a product called quina lalay but it's not made anymore and this is kind of the closest thing that we've got vodka engine vesper was james bond's girlfriend spoiler alert things didn't end well for vesper and unlike martinis where there's an option between olives and lemons there is no debate here this gets a lemon this is the vesper famously inven

ted by ian fleming the creator of james bond james bond got me into bartending so this drink has a little extra meaning for me margarita obviously margarita is one of the most popular cocktails in the world there are so many different ways that it can be made it can be shaken it can be served down on the rocks straight up so for me it's just lime juice triple sec and silver tequila the unaged variety of tequila and as for glassware i'm going to rim this glass one big rock margarita is probably o

ne of the most popular drinks in the world it is the national drink of mexico i like mine with rocks and salt paloma so this drink is made with tequila and grapefruit soda but we're gonna do ours with fresh grapefruit and lime juice so this is my spin on a drink that's usually made with a prepackaged drink liquid sugar two ounces of tequila shake that guy on our cracked ice add a little soda to that can i add a tiny bit of salt to the top which will kind of season that drink and for a welcome do

se of bitterness a long grapefruit twist this is a paloma tequila grapefruit easy to drink a lot of them mexican firing squad special equal parts lime and grenadine and a few healthy dashes of angostura forms the flavor base for this and two ounces of tequila this drink has a kind of politically incorrect sounding name but it was invented in mexico so we're going with it soda in the can and an orange twist to run the length of the glass this is a mexican firing squad special daiquiri daiquiri co

uldn't be simpler it's just three ingredients lime juice simple syrup two ounces of white rum we're going to double strain this guy for clarity this is a daiquiri or a daiquiri natural just rum lime and sugar it's pretty much holy to bartenders [Music] hemingway daiquiri out of many daiquiri variations this is one of the more popular ones that stood the test of time it is sweetened with maraschino liqueur and also has the addition of grapefruit juice this is a hemingway daiquiri hemingway was fa

mous for not liking sugar in his drinks so this one is named after him for the lack of sugar dark and stormy we're using our standard buck speck of lime juice and fresh ginger syrup bermuda rum this is a dark and stormy i just really like this drink the dark and stormy is the national drink of bermuda and it is always made with gosling's rum if it ain't goslings it ain't dark and stormy mai tai here's how you're making mai tai this is orja it's a almond scented syrup used in a variety of tiki dr

inks little goes a long way here dry curacao which is one of many different kinds of orange liqueurs used in classic cocktails rum agricole which is made from fermented cane syrup and has a really nice funkiness to it we're just giving this a quick whip release those aromas i like putting that mint right next to the straw so that when you bring it to your mouth you get the aroma coming right at you and we finish this off with a drizzle of our strong funky jamaican rum this is a mai tai the sexy

grandad of all tiki drinks mojito when making a mojito we're going to need a lot of fresh mint we have a nice chunky demerara sugar cube here and before we add the spirit just so there isn't too much liquid in the shaker we muddle two ounces of silver rum really not trying to add a lot of froth or anything to the drink right now just to get it combined and into a chilled double rocks glass crushed ice to top give our mental smack this is a mojito the national drink of cuba one of the simplest mo

st delicious drinks there is just rum lime sugar and mint hotel now see now special probably my single favorite rum drink if i had to pick this is kind of a pineapple version of a daiquiri but instead of using sugar to sweeten we use apricot brandy if at all possible use fresh pineapple juice for this last but not least this gets just a bar spoon of cane syrup this gives just a hint of depth and two ounces of aged drum and finish just a dash of angostura bitters a little feather across the top t

his is a hotel nacional special invented at the hotel nacional in cuba highly recommend trying this one if you haven't sidecar another great simple three ingredient cocktail lemon juice cointreau and cognac for this we are going to be going with a dry version of the cocktail the no sugar version and we will finish this guy off with a lemon twist the sidecar is an undisputed classic a wonderful sharp citrusy brandy cocktail french 75. we'll start off with a half ounce each of lemon juice and simp

le syrup technically a french 75 can be made with gin or cognac but for today's purposes we're going with the cognac version and what makes a french 75 a french 75 champagne yeah quick tip like to hold on to the metal tree when you're taking this and last but not least the lemon twist this is a french 75 which sounds like a beautiful elegant name but is actually named for a military cannon because it feels like you got hit by one when you drink one brandy alexander you only need three things whe

n making a brandy alexander brandy cream and creme de cacao this is a brandy alexander indulgent decadent but surprisingly balanced just a nice creamy delicious brandy drink view correct start off with a small amount of our monk made benedictine herbal cure and since the view create is a kind of manhattan variation it wouldn't be complete without sweet vermouth and bitters rye whiskey and of course cognac big piece of ice finish with a lemon twist or an orange depending on your bartender since i

'm here and you're on the other side of the screen and can't say anything i'm doing lemon this is a view curry another new orleans classic pink lady so when making a pink lady we'll start by cracking an egg into our large shaker apart from everything else we're going to be mixing fresh lemon juice that nice tart pomegranaty grenadine and as for the hard stuff the pink lady gets a split base of gin and apple brandy also known as applejack do our little feathery design this is a pink lady all too

often forgotten but a true classic del monaco angostura bitters do half ounce each of dry and sweet vermouth and for the hard stuff we have a split base of london dry gin and french cognac all the way up to the top and the del monaco cocktail of course was invented at de monaco's one of the oldest restaurants in the country nice swath of lemon the del monaco cocktail new york's finest jack rose to make a jack rose you just need three things fresh lime juice incredible edible grenadine and our ap

ple brandy the jack rose fyi is the perfect drink for thanksgiving dinner simple refreshing tart delicious born in new jersey bonus drink if you add a absinthe rinse to a jack rose that's a pan american clipper apparel spritz there are a million ways to make an apparel spritz but this is the classic two ounces of aperol three ounces of brut prosecco your fizziest seltzer and the traditional garnish would be just a wedge of orange an orange twist to get a little extra orange flavor into the drink

then i throw it out and don't tell anybody it did the aperol spritz you can do it a million different ways but this is the classic americano traditionally built in the glass that it's drunk from so we're gonna start this on ice showcasing our vermouth from turin just like with the negroni and campari topping with soda and this can be garnished with either an orange wedge or a nice orange twist this is an americano it's the predecessor to the negroni champagne cocktail heavily douse this white s

ugar cube in angostura bitters in casablanca they drink champagne cocktails constantly if you were to drink a champagne cocktail every time they drink one in casablanca you'd be dead this is a champagne cocktail which dates back all the way to the mid-19th century bamboo to make a bamboo we need two kinds of bitters angostura and a smaller amount of orange bitters and for this we're using eco parts dry vermouth and fino sherry delicious fortified wine i don't know who made this up but if you're

having a little bamboo like a bamboo shooter you can call that a bambooter a delicious low alcohol cocktail dating back to late 19th century japan pisco sour we use just a split base of the lemon and lime the reason is simple that in peru and chile the citrus fruit which they really would just call limon there has a taste that's kind of right in the middle of the lemons and limes that we get here simple serve pisco which is technically in the brandy family but is just really its own thing and an

egg white now traditionally a pisco sour can be topped with either three dots of angostura bitters or grated cinnamon i like to do both just because i like the flavor that each one of them lent this is a pisco sour the national drink of both chile and peru both countries claim to have created this drink i choose not to get involved in that fight for a caipirinha we're going to muddle a fresh lime into the drink in with our lime wedges we're going to add our friend the sugar cube that we use for

most of our muddling applications as well as some simple syrup and before we add the base spirit we'll model and two ounces of cachaca cachaca is a fermented sugarcane product and with the caipirinha we really don't want to over shake the drink we just need to give it maybe good 10 shakes or so this is a caipirinha the national drink of brazil it uses fresh lime muddled into the drink which gives it a really nice zesty flavor what i love about classic cocktails is the rich tradition and history

behind each one of these recipes every country has their own spirit that they're proud of so you can really kind of have around the world experience when you're trying out classic cocktails so whether you're trying to mix these cocktails at home or if you're just going to a good cocktail bar i'd recommend ordering one of these classics maybe try one you haven't had before and get into the history of it all cheers