How To Make Cocktails At Home: A Beginner's Guide To Mixing

There’s more to mixing drinks than just dumping liquids together (even though some are actually made that way).

Before you start to purchase spirits online, you need to learn about the essential tools and ingredients you’ll need and how exactly you should mix them into cocktails.

This article serves as a quick guide you can use to start learning how to make great cocktails at home.

Basic Tools and Ingredients

You don’t need to have an entire bar’s worth of alcohol and mixing tools to produce your own cocktail drink. However, there are some basic tools and ingredients you shouldn’t do without.

Tools

You can’t always mix cocktails using a single glass, but you don’t need a closetful of it, either. At the very least, you should have the following basic tools:

• Jigger – This allows you to get precise measurements to create the perfect cocktail drink.
• Shaker – This is used to mix ingredients more thoroughly and traditionally comes with a glass or metal jug with a fitted top and built-in shaker.
• Muddler – This tool is used to gently process herbs into a paste, typically for cocktails such as mojitos and caipirinhas. Muddling is a process that “wakes up” the aroma in the herbs without bruising them.
• Channel knife – Not your ordinary knife; this one is small and shaped like a spoon, perfect for peeling long and thin spirals of fruits for garnishing.
• Glasses – Glasses hold the cocktail and make them look more attractive. Some of the essential glasses you absolutely need to have are collins, old fashioned, martini and coupe glasses.

Ingredients

Spirits commonly used for cocktail drinks are vodka, gin, rum, whisky, and tequila. Although there are many others, these five alone can give you a wide variety of cocktail drinks.

Aside from ordering alcohol online, you may also need to stock up on the following ingredients:

• Liqueurs – flavorings that are typically sweet
• Citrus – lemon or lime juice
• Fruits – oranges, passion fruits, grapefruits, forest fruits, or whatever is in season
• Sugar or sweeteners – can be as simple as sugar or as complex as an orange peel and cinnamon infused with vanilla syrup
• Juices – freshly squeezed or concentrated
• Spices or bitters – examples include star anise, cinnamon, or vanilla; and Peychaud bitters or orange bitters, etc.

How to Mix: 3 Basic Methods

Experts call cocktail-making “mixology.” From that term alone, you’ll know that it is the art of preparing mixed drinks.

Below are three main ways you can do just that:

1.Stirring

Stirring is ideal for cocktails and other drinks with several ingredients, particularly those that are very lightweight.

Here are some examples of cocktail drinks that require stirring:

• Martini
• Old fashioned
• Sazerac
• Manhattan
• Negroni
• Rusty nail

2.Pouring

Although all liquid drinks are literally poured together, only the most basic cocktails are made using this mixing technique alone. “Basic,” in this case, means having no more than two liquids mixed together.

An example of this is whiskey and Coke. To make this simple cocktail, bartenders start by pouring the alcohol before adding the ice. Finally, they pour in the soda and serve.

3.Shaking

Shaking is probably one of the most popular mixing methods known to man. After all, it is often what bartenders do during exhibitions and is usually depicted in the movies.

As you probably have guessed, shaking requires a shaker – that shiny metal or glass tool mentioned earlier. After ingredients are poured into it, the bartender shakes it like one would a maraca.

Shaking is a method used for most cocktails, especially those with thicker ingredients to blend them better.

Pro Tip: Before shaking, make sure that you include ice as the chill from it will prevent too much frothing. Then, strain the mixture into a new glass with a fresh set of ice. Never use the one that’s been battered inside the shaker.

Among the cocktails you need to shake are:

• Daiquiri
• Margarita
• Tom Collins
• Sidecar
• Mint Julep
• Cuba Libre (this one needs to be shaken and stirred)

Mix Magic into Your Drinks

While cocktail preparation is not as complicated as most people think, it still requires the right tools, ingredients, and techniques. Use this beginner’s guide to begin mixing magic into your drinks.