Making Cocktails, Bartenders’ Secrets Revealed

Mixing drinks is awesome; it’s super fun and a great way of entertaining guests. If you thought you had to go to a club or a bar for a nice craft cocktail, think again — you can make cocktails at home, and with some practice, they end up as good the finest in upscale venues.

Making cocktails does have some secrets, and all bartenders know them. Having the right tools, ingredients and recipes is paramount for being successful in this boozy hobby. The good news? Learning about mixing drinks is as enjoyable as drinking your creations! Here’s what you need to make cocktails at home.

The Right Tools for Making Cocktails

A cocktail-making kit is a beautiful gift for yourself and your friends. It’s incredible how a cocktail shaker, a jigger (measuring cup), spoon and glass are often all you need to craft fantastic drinks of restaurant quality.

Before you start mixing drinks, make sure you get the right cocktail mixing set. There are great gift boxes already assembled and available at our store, and they’re pretty convenient! Choose your favorite and don’t worry too much about it. The tools are just half the story; you also need some skills!

Bartender’s Secret Formula

There are dozens if not hundreds of different cocktails, but they all follow the same formulas. These ratios have been perfected for over a century, so knowing about them is enough to craft some nice drinks on the spot with whatever you have in hand.

Perhaps the most exciting bartending secret is the formula for a sour cocktail. Drinks in this category include the mojito, daiquiri, margarita, Tom Collins, whiskey sour, caipirinha and many others. It all starts with a spirit, a sweetener and citrus juice; that’s it!

Two ounces of your favorite spirit, whether vodka, rum or whiskey, one ounce of simple syrup and another one of lime and lemon juice make a quick and easy sour cocktail. And by the way, top your cocktail with soda, and you’ve got yourself a fantastic tall drink!

And Then There’s The Classics

Making cocktails is about innovation and creating your own drinks, yes, but it’s also about knowing the

classics by heart. If you’re really into drink mixing, you must know how to make a Martini, Old-Fashioned, a Manhattan and a Negroni by heart, and that’s just a drop in the bucket!

Classic cocktails matter because they set the standard for what cocktails should be. They’re also fantastic building blocks for innovation, but if you don’t know the classic recipes, you’ll have a hard time creating your own new classics! Get yourself a cocktail recipe book, read a few cocktail blogs and do some research online!

Share Your Passion for Cocktail Making

The most important thing about mixing drinks is doing so for your friends and family. Cocktails bring people together, and there’s no greatest satisfaction than putting together a round of drinks for your buddies.

While you’re at it, gift a cocktail mixing set to your best friends and share your newfound passion with them. Mixing cocktails is much more fun when it’s an activity everyone can enjoy together! How’s that for a new hobby? Now, let’s make ourselves a drink and start our drink-mixing journey!