Planter’s House co-owner and crack barkeep Ted Kilgore spills his drink-mixing secrets.
In my 16 years as a bartender, I have accumulated hundreds of books on cocktails, spirits and bartending in pursuit of making the best cocktail possible. While I’d found lots of differing opinions, none seemed to offer a definitive answer.
Then one day, I found myself mixing five different Sidecar recipes trying to determine the “correct” one. By the end, I realized I had developed my own set of formulas and rules. These formulas offered consistent balance and structure, and placed the drink in a flavor profile range that the majority of my customers enjoyed. I’ve found that the most popular cocktails follow the “sour” formula. If you learn this formula, you can make and create a host of fabulous drinks.
Basic sour recipe
2 oz. base spirit (gin, whiskey, vodka, etc.)
1 oz. sweet (simple syrup, liqueur, agave, etc.)
¾ oz. sour (lemon, lime, etc.)
Now that you have the basic formula, apply it to other classic cocktails:
Margarita
2 oz. tequila
1 oz. triple sec
¾ oz. fresh lime juice
Tom Collins
2 oz. gin or vodka
1 oz. simple syrup
¾ oz. fresh lemon juice
Club soda
Starting to see the connection? Now that we have the formula, let’s apply my rules and method.
Start with high-quality ingredients, or at least the best you can get your hands on. The idea is to make the best possible drink you can, whatever the circumstances.
Measure ingredients (except anything carbonated or bubbly) into your shaking vessel without ice. (I like to use Oxo angled measuring cups.) Next, you’ll want a shaker big enough to hold plenty of ice and that has a clean seal. (I use two-piece metal Boston shakers.) Add cold, fresh, hard ice, as much as you can fit into the smaller half of the shaker. If using a cobbler shaker (the three-piece variety with a small top that looks like a cap), fill it all the way up.
Now shake. The most important thing to remember is to shake a minimum of 17 seconds. At 17 seconds, you will have reached the point at which the ice and the ingredients (now diluted about 30 percent) are around the same temperature (28 to 33 degrees). The harder the shake, the more air that enters the drink, providing a lighter mouth feel.
Using a mesh strainer, pour into a chilled glass. You can fine-strain through a tea strainer if you wish to eliminate tiny ice shards – useful when serving the drink “up,” but less necessary when it’s served over ice anyway. Garnish with something fresh and pretty. Drink and (of course) repeat.
This article appears in September 2014.