Today on the Anders Erickson show -
Shaking,
and stirring.
Welcome back, friends - it's Anders.
I've received a lot of questions from a lot of you about shaking and stirring.
When do we do it?
How do we do it?
Why do we do it?
I'll tell you why - to chill and dilute.
We turn that ice into water.
That helps out the cocktail. But there's more to it, clearly - because there's two separate techniques.
And some people have gotten really scientific with this. I'll leave some links down below.
They're fascinating studies, and you'll learn a lot. But today I'm going to show you the techniques
that I've developed over the years. This is just what works best for me.
I'm going to talk about shaking, i'm going to talk about stirring, I'm going to demonstrate,
talk about some of the mistakes I've made in the past, and mistakes I think a lot of bartenders do,
and then Az is gonna join me to help demonstrate.
Those of you who don't know who Az is - she's my girlfriend who's on the other side of this camera.
And she's not a bartender, so I think it'll be useful to see a non-bartender person,
a normal person,
a normie.
Then at the end - oh - stick around, because then at the end we'll talk about multitasking.
Which is actually really important behind a busy bar.
Or if you have a group of friends and you just want to make multiple cocktails at a time.
We're going to talk about shaking two cocktails at a time, stirring two cocktails at a time,
and shaking and stirring simultaneously. It could be fun.
It will be fun.
If you're new to the channel, hit that subscribe button for more sips, tips, and recipes.
Let's shake things up!
To the bar.
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First up - shaking.
Now I want to show you the shaking tin that I will be using.
This is the Boston shaker - specifically a tin-on-tin Boston shaker.
Some of you might have this,
others might have the cobbler shaker - which is another very popular shaker.
You can apply these rules to both shakers. I do talk about these more in my tools video,
so check it out.
But I am just going to talk about shaking in general here.
The reason why we shake is, first of all, to chill and dilute - obviously, but it also incorporates air.
Which is something that doesn't happen when you stir. That's what makes shaking so special.
You add air to the cocktail, which affects the texture.
It adds small little bubbles, and it keeps the drink nice and light.
As a general rule, there are three main ingredients that you're going to want to shake.
That's citrus, dairy, and eggs.
With the citrus, shaking and adding those air bubbles is going to tone down the sharp acid from the citrus.
Also, you want to shake if you have dairy or egg.
Shaking it agitates everything, and it just helps emulsify that ingredient into the drink.
I mean, think about making a meringue. You don't just stir it slowly.
You really gotta work it.
You gotta whip that stuff.
Also, adding little air bubbles to your cocktail dampens the alcoholic burn of alcohol.
So I would say in a lot of cases it makes that drink more "drinkable." You won't notice the burn of the alcohol.
The effects remain the same.
Anyway, shaking - texture. Texture, from the bubbles - that's what we want.
Techniques!
There are two main techniques for shaking. You've got your Japanese hard shake,
and that typically is a three-point shake which involves shaking and snapping your wrist.
So you're actually turning the shaker as you shake. Then there's the American style,
which is a two-point shake, and it's pretty much just a back and forth shake.
Which one's better than the other?
It doesn't matter.
As long as you are shaking for 10 to 15 seconds with enough ice and using the whole shaking tin,
your liquid will reach thermal equilibrium. Basically meaning your cocktail will get as cold
and diluted as it's gonna get during that shake. So shake it however you like.
That's where your own technique comes in handy.
But before I show you how I like to shake the cocktail, let's touch on some things that you want to try to avoid.
One of the most common mistakes I've seen bartenders do is they don't actually shake the cocktail.
They pick it up and they just kind of wiggle it around.
And if you think about what the liquid is doing in there, it's just kind of getting sloshed around.
The goal here is to make that liquid travel from one end of your shaking tin to the other.
You want that ice to hit both sides. This is how you get the air into the cocktail.
So you really want to wake it up.
The second mistake is only holding one side of the tin.
Now this does form a seal - and it's a pretty good seal, but I wouldn't bet my cocktail on it.
It's gonna end up on you, on the customers, on the floor. Be aware that these are not glued together.
The third mistake is over exerting your body to shake a cocktail. If you're working in a bar and you have to shake many cocktails,
over time that is wear and tear on your body. I have known people who have physically injured themselves
trying to shake a cocktail. Some people will tighten up their necks,
some people will throw out joints. Really, do what's best for you.
As long as you're shaking this cocktail,
waking it up, not hurting yourself, I think you're doing okay.
Now let's get into how I shake a cocktail.
Anders method.
I like to build my cocktail in the larger tin first. Then I fill the cheater tin with ice -
this measures out the right amount of ice for shaking. Then I dump that into the larger tin
and give it a good tap to form a seal. The two tins will nestle together forming a straight line on one side
and an angled side on the other. With one hand I place my thumb on the seam along the
straight edge, and grab both tins with two fingers on each tin. Before I start shaking, I like to give a quick
back and forth shake down by my waist - this is just something I do to make sure I have a good seal.
Now I like to shake up by my shoulder - that's just most natural for me, but do what's comfortable for you.
I usually make a V-shape with my shaking pattern - moving the base of the shaker slightly up and down.
This way the liquid inside doesn't just move straight back and forth.
When I'm done shaking, I squeeze the larger tin by the seam while I push the cheater tin away with my thumb.
If squeezing the tin is a struggle, a common thing to do is to hit the side with the palm of your hand
to break the seal - this works too. I like to double strain because not only does it catch the
ice pieces that the Hawthorne strainer misses, but it also helps aerate the cocktail.
Az pretty much stuck to a back and forth shake. She did find it a bit more difficult to shake up high.
It was more comfortable for her down by her chest. Now she did make a vulgar comment on the way it looks.
Kinda makes it look like I'm [bleep] someone off.
But I will bleep that out.
She also found that it was really loud up close to her ear. This is something to keep in mind if you have sensitive ears.
Now how long to shake the cocktail depends on its application.
If you're going to be pouring this over crushed ice - which is going to cause it to dilute and chill rather rapidly,
you're going to want to do a whip shake. Which is a really short shake that's just to
incorporate the ingredients with minimal dilution.
Now you want to shake it a little bit longer if you're going to serve the cocktail on rocks - which are gonna melt slower
than the crushed ice, but it's still going to dilute and chill the drink after it's served.
As far as an "up" drink like a Daiquiri or a Sidecar, that's where we want to shake it to optimal dilution.
So that when we strain it into the glass, it's going to be proper dilution down to the last sip.
Over time you will learn that the cocktail actually feels slightly different
in your hands when it has reached the appropriate dilution.
You can also hear the pitch of the ice change. So that's how I tell.
When it's really cold on your hands, it's chilled.
Now stirring.
When we stir a cocktail we are chilling and diluting without adding the air bubbles.
Typically if you have a cocktail that's all spirits, or predominantly spirits, you want to stir the drink.
Of course rules are meant to be broken, but this is a general rule of thumb.
And this is really to maintain the weight of the cocktail, to maintain the aromatics, and it also
makes for a clearer drink - which is just really nice looking. The goal is to mix this drink without "bruising" the spirits.
"Bruising" [laughter] these worst air quotes ever. "Bruising" is referred to mostly when talking about gin.
That's because gin has delicate botanical notes, and they get destroyed when you shake a cocktail.
That's not to say you can't shake a gin cocktail, but if it's predominantly spirits -
predominantly gin -
if you stir the cocktail you maintain the delicate flavors of the botanicals,
the drink doesn't get cloudy, and you're not overly agitating it. So it still showcases the spirit.
But, rules are meant to be broken. So if you want your gin martini shaken,
I hope you enjoy it.
To stir your cocktail you're gonna need a vessel, which could be really just about anything.
In my case I've got a mixing glass that I like very much. You could do it in here.
It's nice because it's heavy on the bottom, it's not going to move, it was meant for stirring.
So I have seen some bartenders keep their mixing glass in the freezer so that it's nice and chilled
when they're ready to mix with it, and some studies have shown that that is slightly beneficial.
However that is not practical for me. When I was at the bar on a busy night,
I would have had to have had so many mixing glasses and a ton of freezer space - both of which I did not have.
And here at home I still don't have the freezer space, so I'm not keeping it in the freezer.
If you were wondering.
It does look cool when it's frozen and you're mixing a drink in like a frozen mixing glass.
It does look cool.
But I don't do that.
When I stir a cocktail, I like to build the cocktail in the mixing glass before I add ice.
That's because if I were to add the ice first, the melting of the ice happens immediately.
I want control of dilution. That's why I add ice last.
And when I do add ice, I like a good amount of ice. If you mix a cocktail with just, say two or three ice
cubes, and they're swimming in the drink, what's gonna happen is that drink is gonna dilute faster than it's gonna chill.
Now for the technique.
Hold your spoon comfortably with two fingers on top and two fingers underneath.
When you're mixing, keep the back of the spoon against the inside of the mixing glass.
Kind of like tracing a circle around the perimeter of the glass.
Your top two fingers will do a pulling motion and your bottom two will push to make a circle.
All this allows you to spin the ice as one unit without breaking it up - Which is really important.
The ice melts evenly into the cocktail without introducing too much air. In most cases I'll stir for 30 to 45 seconds.
I know it's done when the edges of the ice cubes round off and fall into the drink.
I also get a sense of how cold it is by the condensation on the outside of the mixing glass.
When I strain, generally I like using a julep strainer because it's got large holes that allow the liquid to fall with little agitation.
Az was actually really good at stirring. Maybe not the fastest, but it doesn't need to be.
Now a good tool to use if you're starting with this technique is a chopstick. You don't have to spin it in your fingers,
and it actually does the exact same thing. AZ: Oh yeah, that's way easy.
But that's not to say you shouldn't practice using a spoon.
And this brings us to multitasking.
And when I say that, I'm referring to making separate cocktails simultaneously.
This is mostly for those who bartend because you're just going to be making more drinks,
but if you are at home and you have friends over, or you're at a party and you're bartending,
These are good techniques to have. And this isn't about "show."
This is about efficiency and getting it done.
I don't know, maybe you want to impress your wife - I don't know - or husband, or kids.
"Hey, kids look at me. I'm making multiple cocktails."
Nah - no, no - okay.
All right, shaking two cocktails at the same time.
Sounds easy - it actually is. Just remember, hold the shaking tin so that the seal does not get broken while you shake.
You can shake them in unison because they're gonna chill and dilute at the same rate.
But it does get really loud. That's an easy one.
Stirring two cocktails is another story.
If you can stir two cocktails, I'm impressed. That took me a while.
My left hand is actually rather stupid,
so don't be discouraged. It's gonna take a little work.
Now the expert level is to stir and shake a cocktail at the same time.
Now the technique that I use is, I use my stupid side - my left hand side -
my non-dominant hand, to shake, because there's less to think about.
And my right hand, with the fine motor skills that it has, I can stir the cocktail.
I'll usually build both cocktails before I add any ice. I'll start stirring first because that's going to take a little bit longer,
and then I just fold in the shaking. And I don't think about it. And you can, like, talk to people at the bar.
Keep your mind off of what you're doing until it feels right. Usually you're gonna stop shaking first
because that'll be ready soon. Finish up with the spoon,
and your done!
And everybody says, "Hey can you rub your belly and pat your head?"
"I bet you can!"
Don't do it.
Then you're just a freak.
If you already know how to use this technique - any of these techniques.
How you shake - do you use the Japanese three-point hard shake? American style?
Keep asking the questions. I read them all.
Even if I can't answer them, I'll think about them.
Thank you for watching. Like and subscribe. I'll see you next time.
Cheers!
It's hard to look cool shaking a cocktail.
I mean I do it,
but it is..
..it's not easy.
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