Tips and Tricks: When to Shake & When to Stir

Tips and Tricks: When to Shake & When to Stir Your Cocktails:

When to Shake:

Shake cocktails when they include fruit juices, cream liqueurs, simple syrup, sour mix, egg, dairy or any other thick or flavorful mixers. Shaking will create a strained drink with a cloudy, effervescent look at first that will clear up within a few minutes after straining.

When to Stir:

Stir cocktails that use distilled spirits or very light mixers only. Stirring is a more gentle technique for mixing cocktails and is used to delicately combine the drinks with a perfect amount of dilution. Many gin and whiskey cocktails are stirred because shaking is said to "bruise" the spirit.

This "rule" refers to cocktails and not necessarily mixed drinks which are almost always stirred and served with a sipstick or straw for further, fine-tuned stirring as the drink is consumed.