Home Cocktail Hacks
Or “how to use regular household items to mix drinks like a pro!”
With the current lockdown measures in place, something we are all missing is heading out for a cocktail at our favourite bar. Team Esker definitely are!
Which means we have seen a rise in home-cocktail-making as we attempt to recreate our favourite tipples. We are spoilt for choice with amazing online content from industry experts, brands and mixologists taking us through the paces, demonstrating recipes and showing how to make great quality drinks in our own kitchens.
Most of the ingredients are simple and easy enough to get hold of, but not everyone has all the professional kit to play along with and getting kitted up can be a bit difficult and quite costly too!
Do not fear! Help is at hand, as our Esker Spirits brand ambassador Julia shares some ideas to help you mix up Masterful Martinis and Top Notch Tom Collins using everyday items found around the house.
1. The Shaker
A cocktail shaker is an absolutely essential for mixing so many classic and well loved cocktails. The shaker is used for mixing the ingredients together as well as getting the right flavour, temperature and dilution. Professional shakers can come in all shapes and sizes with the most common being the Boston Shaker.
Cool, but what else can you use at home?
Jam/ Mason Jar
Just as you would use a shaker, add your ingredients and ice to your jar and shake, shake, shake (and boomerang this stage for Instagram of course!)
There are a few things to note when using a jar in place of a shaker:
Try not to fill it up to the top with ice as you would in a professional shaker - a lot of recipes will tell you that you need to, however when using a jam jar you need to leave room for the ice and cocktail to shake. This might mean the drink will take longer to get cold so you may have to increase shaking time!
Make sure the jar lid is tightly sealed when shaking (!) and use the lid as a strainer when you pour the drink to hold back your ice.
A fitness shaker/ plastic reusable water bottle
These work as a great alternative to a shaker and might give you a bit more space than the jam jar! They are durable, unbreakable and the sipping spout works well as a built-in strainer for when you are pouring your cocktail!
Super important notice: Make sure you don’t add any carbonated component to any kind of shaker, this could result in a messy/ dangerous cocktail disaster! If a recipe calls for a top of soda, always add this at the end, directly to your drinking glass.
2. Mixing Glass
Much like the shaker, the mixing glass is used to blend ingredients, chill and dilute cocktails by stirring with ice using a bar spoon. The Mixing Glass is mostly used when making cocktails that contain only alcoholic ingredients such as Martinis, Manhattans and The Old Fashioned; using a mixing glass works well when making these slightly more refined drinks as it allows you to carefully control the amount of dilution in the drink.
What else can you use instead:-
Cafetière
Just as you would use a mixing glass, add ingredients to the glass part of your coffee cafetière and stir until the drink is chilled with desired dilution. The cafetière is a perfect alternative as you can place the lid back on and use this to hold back the ice while you strain the cocktail into your glassware. The built-in spout also makes it easy to pour!
Another reason the cafetière is a great alternative is that you can either make a perfect one person serve in a smaller cafetière, or if you have one that is bigger this is ideal for batch making your favourite stirred drinks…. such as the Esker Martini!
Super important notice: Make sure your cafetière is clean and totally free from coffee granules. Your translucent, chilled martini will not look or taste so great with coffee grains floating on the top!
Pint Glass/ Glass Jug
Use a pint glass or glass jug in the same way as your cafetière. The pint glass works well as it holds a similar volume to a traditional style mixing glass - add ingredients, ice and stir. You will need a strainer to use along with the pint glass or glass jug in order to hold back the ice when pouring your cocktail.
3. Strainers
Strainers are used to hold back ice and any unwanted ice or debris that you don’t want to have in your finished drink. There are two types of strainer that are essential in cocktail making: the Hawthorne and the Fine Strainer.
The Hawthorne Strainer is used with a Boston shaker or mixing glass as a barrier which holds back larger pieces of ice or other ingredients while allowing the liquid to pour out.
A Fine Strainer is used to make sure that you don’t get any small flecks of ice or fruit pulp in your cocktail. Fine strainers are most often used when serving martini style drinks “straight up” (not over ice) to ensure that the drink has a smooth texture and an attractive, clean appearance.
No strainer? No problem!
Jam jar lid/ fitness shaker Lid/ cafetière lid
These can be used in place of a Hawthorne to hold back ice and bigger pieces of fruit that you don’t want in your cocktail.
Loose leaf tea infuser
Perfect for fine straining as the small holes will effectively strain off smaller ice flecks or fruit pulp. Make sure the strainer is nice and clean as otherwise it might add unwanted flavours or colours to your cocktail!
A mini sieve or tea strainer
These are essentially the same as a fine strainer so will work perfectly. Again, just ensure it is super clean..
Super important notice: When instructed to “double strain” a cocktail this means strain your cocktail through both a Hawthorne style strainer as well as your Fine/ tea strainer. To get a professional style finish on your drinks it is important that you make sure you do this when your recipe requires you to do so.
4. Bar Spoon
A professional bar spoon has a variety of uses including crushing fruit, layering drinks and measuring out smaller quantities; however it is used mostly for stirring drinks in a mixing glass and when making drinks at home this is its main purpose!
Cool, but my teaspoons aren’t that long!
A regular table spoon...
...end of a fork, butter knife, two chopsticks banded together.
Standard cutlery or a couple of chopsticks held with an elastic band will do the job fine and the end result will be pretty much the same! Stir close to the outside rim of the glass for a while, maybe 20 or 30 rotations, to ensure all ingredients are integrated into a silky, smooth whole.
A teaspoon
Use a teaspoon for measuring if your recipe calls for you to use ”a bar spoon” of a certain ingredient. This is usually around 5ml which is a similar amount to what most standard teaspoons hold.
Super important notice: You may lose out on a bit of the manoeuvrability and finesse that a thin, long-necked bar spoon is capable of and since the bar spoon is used for stirred drinks, the most important factor is mixing thoroughly—not chaotically!
5. Jigger/ Measure
A Jigger or a measure is used to measure the spirits, juices, syrup mixers etc.
It is so important to be precise with your measuring in order to balance cocktails properly...it is very easy to ruin a cocktail by measuring ingredients by the eye! Jiggers are used in the best cocktail bars around the world, so if the pro’s do it, so should you. In professional UK cocktail making, a standard shot is usually a 25ml measure.
What else can you use instead of a jigger?
Measuring jug/ cup
Preferably use one with small increments so you can accurately measure out smaller quantities required in cocktail making - like 25ml or 50ml. However, a larger measuring jug would be ideal if you are batch making a few cocktails; so just double, triple or quadruple your recipe!
Standard shot glass or egg cup
Everyone has a souvenir shot glass or egg cup brought back from a holiday in their cupboard and these work well as alternatives to a professional measure.
Try and find out how much your shot glass or egg cup holds though - a good way to do this is to measure 25ml of water into a standard measuring jug, pour this into your shot glass/ egg cup and draw on a line so you know where you should be pouring to!
Super important notice: Look out for recipes that are measured in shots/ parts rather than millilitres or ounces. These simpler measurements can be a little easier to measure accurately and should help you make more balanced cocktails.
6. Muddler
A Muddler is used to extract flavours and aromas from fresh fruits and delicate herbs as well as to integrate granulated or cubed sugar into cocktails; all achieved through the process of muddling. Think of it as the Bartender’s Pestle!
How to be a professional muddler at home:
Wooden spoon
Not the spoon-end, as that is not likely to fit into your glass or shaker, but use the handle end to (gently) punch down on citrus, berries or whatever it is you’re muddling!
Small rolling pin
This will need to have a flat or rounded end as a handled one will not work quite so well. Use in the same way as above.
Super important notice:If you are muddling ingredients directly into a glass or jam jar, be sure to be extra gentle to avoid the muddler slipping/ cracking the glass and causing yourself a nasty injury! You just want to be lightly pressing the juices out rather than pulverising fruit, so please muddle carefully.
7. Make your own sugar syrup
Many cocktail recipes ask you to sweeten your drink with sugar. Pre-dissolved sugar syrup (also known as simple syrup or gomme) works best as granulated sugar does not dissolve easily in cold drinks.
Sugar syrup can be bought pre-made in bottles however it is much cheaper and super easy to make your own.
• Warm a Pyrex jug or heat proof vessel
• Add 2 parts (by volume) granulated sugar
• Add 1 parts boiling water
• Stir until dissolved
• Fine Strain into a bottle or sealable container
P.S Keep air-tight in the fridge and your sugar syrup can keep for around 2 months!
Ready to make some cocktails at home?
Hopefully you now feel better equipped to start mixing up some great drinks at home! Go take a look at our perfect serves and cocktails page or scroll down for a couple of our (current) favourite Esker recipes for you to try out.
Cheers and stay safe!
Julia x
The Esker Martini
2 Shots: Esker London Dry Gin
1 Bar/ Teaspoon: Dry vermouth
Method: Stir in your mixing glass equivalent over ice for 30 seconds
Strain into a very chilled martini glass
Garnish: Orange Peel
The Silverglas Raspberry Collins
2 Shots: Silverglas Scottish Raspberry
1 Shot: Fresh Lemon Juice
½ Shot: Sugar syrup
3 fresh Raspberries
Dash Soda Water
Method: Gently muddle fresh raspberries and sugar syrup in the bottom of your shaker bottle or jar, add all other ingredients(except the Club Soda) and shake with ice.
Double Strain over fresh ice into a tall glass and top with Soda
Garnish: Lemon Peel and 2 Raspberries