What’s the Best Order of Cocktail Ingredients?

Published on Wednesday, September 9, 2009, by CHOW Video Team / Edit Post

What’s the Best Order of Cocktail Ingredients?

A. J. Rathbun, author of CHOW-approved cocktail books Good Spirits and Luscious Liqueurs, shares the proper order of ingredients for making a cocktail: Start with ice. Add your base alcohol, then any secondary liqueurs, then your juice or mixers. Rathbun’s most recent book is Dark Spirits.

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  • I like AJ a lot, but in my opinion, he's got it backwards here.

    As katzzz pointed out, ice goes last. Once it starts to melt, it starts to melt. And if you're scrambling around wondering where that bottle of bitters went, it's still melting. Forgot to squeeze the fresh lime juice, it's melting. Get all your ingredients in the mixing glass first, then add the ice.

    As far as the order of the...+READ

    I like AJ a lot, but in my opinion, he's got it backwards here.

    As katzzz pointed out, ice goes last. Once it starts to melt, it starts to melt. And if you're scrambling around wondering where that bottle of bitters went, it's still melting. Forgot to squeeze the fresh lime juice, it's melting. Get all your ingredients in the mixing glass first, then add the ice.

    As far as the order of the other ingredients go, they should go in from the least expensive to the most expensive. Expensive may be cost, but it may be labor or access too.

    The reason? If you mis-measure or mess up in anyway, you want to have to throw away the lease valuable ingredients and save the more valuable ones.

    A side note: when it comes to egg or dairy based drinks I like to measure those out separately. That way if they are bad, sour or there's shell in it - I don't ruin the work I've done in the shaker/mixing glass.-COLLAPSE

  • I'm sure he is approaching it from a professional's point of view. Citrus juice would be part of a mise en place for the bartender. It should be pre-squeezed before any drinks are made. That is why.....

  • Start with ice? Fine if you are planning to make your cocktail immediately, with no pause for, say, squeezing juice from a lemon or lime.Because if you dally at all you will end up with a watery drink. But you can mix your drink taking your own sweet time if you wait to add ice at the end. Once the ice is in you are on the clock, so to speak. Also, there are lots of cocktails which require steps...+READ

    Start with ice? Fine if you are planning to make your cocktail immediately, with no pause for, say, squeezing juice from a lemon or lime.Because if you dally at all you will end up with a watery drink. But you can mix your drink taking your own sweet time if you wait to add ice at the end. Once the ice is in you are on the clock, so to speak. Also, there are lots of cocktails which require steps such as muddling which would make it impossible to start out with ice in your shaker.-COLLAPSE

  • hear hear, andytee.

  • This would be more interesting, and more useful, if he were to explain why this matters and what difference it makes if you were to, say, add the vermouth before the gin.