Hands

Technique is how you place a drink on the dilution curve and leave the texture you meant. It is not a personality. Measure with a jigger whose lines you can see while you pour. Free-pouring is a show. It is a bad way to learn, because you cannot repeat the accident.

1. 01

   Stir

   For spirit, vermouth, bitters, and not much else. Build in a mixing glass with plenty of cold ice. The back of the barspoon stays against the glass; you guide the ice instead of beating it. Twenty to thirty seconds is a start, until the glass frosts and a spoonful tastes open rather than hot. If the ice is cracking and the tin sounds like a maraca, you are chipping the drink cloudy. Strain off the ice with a julep strainer. The drink should look silky.

2. 02

   Shake

   For juice, cream, egg, and anything that needs to be forced together. Ice and liquid in the tin, seal, and shake so the ice actually travels. Ten to twelve seconds is a starting count for a sour, then you taste. A frosted tin means cold. Cold is not proof of enough water. Point the ends of the tin away from anyone’s face, including your own, when you break the seal.

3. 03

   Dry shake, and the reverse

   Egg white needs air to become foam. The older method is to shake without ice first, then add ice and shake again to chill and dilute. The newer one shakes with ice first, strains, and shakes again without ice so the foam emulsifies after the dilution is already decided. Both work. Pick one and learn what “enough” feels like. Use an egg you’d eat, or a pasteurized white. Citrus and alcohol are not a safety step.

4. 04

   Build

   Highballs and some old fashioneds are made in the glass they leave in. Cold glass, spirit, ice to the top, lengthener last. One gentle lift with a spoon to combine. If you stir a highball into a froth you have beaten the carbonation out of the thing you just paid for.

5. 05

   Strain

   A Hawthorne strainer holds back the ice from a shake. A fine mesh after it catches shards and pulp. Those shards matter: they keep melting in the coupe and push a correct drink past the plateau while people are still talking. Stirred drinks generally want only the julep strainer, unless something didn’t dissolve.

A whip shake is a short shake with a little ice, for drinks that will finish diluting over crushed ice in the glass. A throw — pouring the drink back and forth between tins — aerates a spirit-forward drink without a full shake. Both are optional. Neither replaces the stir and the shake. Learn those until you can hit the plateau without counting, and then keep counting anyway when you’re tired.