Cocktail questions, answered

Six bottles cover the overwhelming majority of classic cocktails: gin, white rum, tequila (blanco), vodka, bourbon or rye whiskey, and sweet vermouth. Add Campari and an orange liqueur such as triple sec and you can already make a Negroni, Margarita, Daiquiri, Old Fashioned, Manhattan and Dry Martini without buying anything else. Our guide on stocking your first home bar walks through the buying order.

A standard bar measure is 4 cl, which is about 1.35 oz. Most recipes round to 1.5 oz (4.5 cl) in the US and 4 cl in Europe — the difference is small enough that the balance of the drink survives either way, as long as you scale every ingredient the same way. Every recipe here has a cl/oz toggle directly above the ingredient list, so you never have to convert by hand.

Shake any drink containing citrus juice, egg white, cream or fruit: shaking aerates and emulsifies, which those ingredients need. Stir drinks made only of spirits, liqueurs and bitters — a Dry Martini, Manhattan or Negroni— so they stay crystal clear and silky instead of cloudy and bubbly. The rule of thumb: if it's see-through in the bottle, stir it.

Combine equal parts caster sugar and hot water by weight (1:1) and stir until fully dissolved — no boiling needed, and boiling only drives off water and changes the ratio. It keeps for about a month in a sealed bottle in the fridge; a splash of vodka extends that. Rich syrup is two parts sugar to one part water, roughly twice as sweet, so halve the amount a recipe calls for. See the cocktail dictionary for prep recipes and technique specs.

A Daiquiri. It is three ingredients — white rum, lime juice and sugar syrup — and it teaches the sour ratio that underpins the Margarita, Whiskey Sour, Sidecar and dozens of others. Once you can balance a Daiquiri by taste, most shaken drinks become straightforward. Browse everything marked easy on the full recipe list.

Yes, though for temperature and aroma more than for looks. Stemmed glasses keep your hand off the bowl, so drinks served without ice stay cold. Narrow openings concentrate aroma, which is why spirit-forward drinks are served in coupes and Nick & Noras. Tall glasses hold enough ice to keep a highball cold for as long as it takes to drink it. Every recipe on the site lists its intended glass — tap it for a description.

Not if you can avoid it. Bottled citrus is pasteurised and preserved, which flattens the aroma and leaves a dull, faintly bitter note that dominates a three-ingredient drink. Fresh juice starts losing its brightness within a few hours, so squeeze shortly before you pour — one lime yields roughly 2.5–3 cl. This is the single biggest quality difference in a home bar, ahead of any bottle upgrade.

Substitute within the same role. One aromatic bitters for another, triple sec for Cointreau, bourbon for rye (expect something rounder and sweeter), white rum for blanco tequila in a sour. What does not work is swapping across roles: replacing a bittering agent with a sweet liqueur changes the drink entirely rather than shifting it. Ingredient names on our recipe pages link into the dictionary where a substitution matters.

Almost always the ice. Small cubes have far more surface area and melt fast, and ice from a slushy bag is already melting before it reaches the drink. Use large, dry cubes straight from the freezer, fill the shaker or mixing glass right to the top — a full vessel dilutes less, not more, because it chills faster — and shake for roughly 12 seconds rather than 30.

A shaker, a jigger, a bar spoon, a strainer and a citrus press cover essentially every recipe on this site. A muddler and a fine-mesh strainer are the next two worth adding. You do not need a Boston shaker specifically — a three-piece cobbler shaker handles everything a beginner will make. Full breakdown in essential tools for the home bartender.

Rebuild the structure rather than simply removing the spirit, which leaves sweet juice. A cocktail balances strength, sweetness, acidity and bitterness, so replace the spirit with something carrying body and bite — strongly brewed cold tea, a non-alcoholic aperitif, or verjus — and cut the syrup slightly, because alcohol suppresses perceived sweetness. Sours and highballs adapt best; stirred spirit-forward drinks rarely do.

Yes. Every recipe includes English, Norwegian, German, French and Spanish translations of the description, ingredients and method. Use the language selector in the header to switch — your choice is remembered on your device for future visits.