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What I like to show you now is how to shake a drink. Now normally drinks that are shaken contain liquors, fruit juices and cream and the reason why we shake the drink is because you want to mix the ingredients thoroughly together. Normally, your fruit juices and cream are thicker, are heavier in density than your liquors. So by shaking the drink, you’re not only going to chill it down but you’re also going to infuse the flavors and mix them thoroughly together. Most professional bartenders will use what is cold a Boston shaking kit and a Boston shaking kit consists of a stainless steel, cup, mixing tin and a glass mixing cup; the glass mixing cup being smaller.
Now, I’m going to show you how to shake a drink, the professional way using a Boston strainer, so what I’m going to do is I’m going to fill it up about halfway my metal mixing tin with ice. Then what I’m going to add is two ounces of sweet and sour, this is our sweet and sour mix, and this is a non-alcoholic mix. It’s made from citrus juices, usually lemon juice, sometimes lime juice and with sugar. So it’s a sweet, sour non-alcoholic mixture that’s used in many, many drinks. I’ve got my two ounces of sweet and sour and then since we’re making Amaretto sour, I’m going to use one ounce of Amaretto. An Amaretto is a very sweet liqueur that’s got kind of an almond favor to it. Oh there we go. There’s an ounce of it.
Now you notice that in preparing my cocktails, I always use a measuring instrument, this is called a jigger and the reason why I’m using a measuring instrument is because I always want my drinks to have a consistent flavor. If I don’t use a measuring instrument, the drink might either be too strong or too weak, too heavy or too light.
Now usually shaken drinks that are pre-chilled at shaking cups are served in a stem cocktail glass. So what I want to do is I want to chill my stem cocktail glass while making my drink. Let’s get a little ice in there, a little dash of water in there and that’s going to pre-chill it. Now, to chill my drink, to shake it, I’m going to put my glass mixing cup into my metal part, give a little twist to seal it, put my hands on both parts of it and then shake it vigorously back and forth, shake it about 8 or 9 times, you want to break up that ice, you want to get that drink nice and foamy, nice and chill. And then what I’m going to use a strainer, this is called a Hawthorn strainer; we’re going to dump the ice in the water from my stem cocktail glass. Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to just pour my drink right in there and when you’re pouring drinks in stem cocktail glasses leave about half an inch from the rim so when you lift the drink and you serve it, you don’t spill it.
So there we go, another way to shake a drink is to use one of these small home shakers. In fact sometimes you see professional bartenders use these also. And this is a three-part shaker; it consists of a stainless steel, a shaking cup which we put our ice and our ingredients in. The second part of it which goes right on top is a strainer part that acts as a cap and it will also allow you to strain the cocktail out of the shaker without placing the ice in the glass. So we’ll put it right there, let’s get it right on here, the right way. And then third part goes on top of this, and this also can be used as a measuring instrument and I believe this is either an ounce or three quarters of an ounce.
So let’s say that you’re going to shake a drink with one of our home shakers, probably we’ll do this first of all, put our ice in here, put our ingredients in here, then put our cap on, make sure that it’s tight, put our top on like so and then we just shake it, just like so, shake it about 8 or 9 times, get your drink, nice and cold, take off your top like this. And then, you would just pour your ingredients right in your glass like this. So it’s a little easier to use rather than the Boston shaking set which consists of 2 pieces; your stainless steel cup and your glass cup. So it’s just a little simpler, these are quite easy to buy, you can buy them on the internet, you probably can got to a local liquor store, they probably have them in there. And also these can come in a couple of different sizes, this is a small one, this is good for about one drink that they have, one set or larger that could make 2 drinks and they go all the way up to 3 drinks.
In fact, what you see now in a lot of bars say a Martini bar or a Rocket Mojitos, they’ll make the drink in here, then cap is like so and then what they’ll do is they’ll take this to the table, they will pour the drink right at the table or right in front of the customer and they will leave the little mixing tin and cup there so there’s a little left over as customer drinks on there, he drinks a little bit they can pour a little more room there. So it’s just another way of mixing our ingredients.
So remember do a little shake drinks that consist of your liquors, fruit juices and creams. Our clear liquors normally you don’t shake, however as I told you before, often times you will see people or bartenders shaking martinis. I don’t really think it’s a good idea; it waters down the drink too much. Too many chips of ice gives it a little too much, it weakens the drink with the water.
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