Before delving into the different types of shakes, it's important to understand the fundamentals of what a shake achieves. A shake is useless if the ice you use isn't of high quality. If the ice you use is cloudy, irregularly sized, or has some kind of residual odor, you'll be less able to control the dilution and create consistent cocktails. If your freezer doesn't produce decent ice, buy Bar Rentals in Roswell GA at a local supermarket or make your own with simple ice molds. Once you have good ice and you've made sure that the ingredients you've mixed are balanced, you're ready to focus on your shake.
The whipping technique is incredibly nuanced, but its objectives are simple and consistent. To do this, fill the shaker can with ice and shake it vigorously. You must let the ice “beat” the ingredients to mix, aerate and cool the drink quickly and efficient. Time is another factor to consider, and waiters have varied perspectives on this topic.
Lorincz recommends using 19 seconds with a pie shaker (her preferred type of shaker). Aaron Wall, owner of the Homeboy Bar in London, points out that guidelines from the International Bartenders Association recommend shaking for eight seconds, but they say that six is enough if shaken with enough force. And then there's the question of how the times are different if the cocktail is served up and not down. It may be best to leave this up to personal preferences and interpretations, but just shake vigorously with suitable ice for at least seven seconds. Once you have a basic understanding of the standard technique, it's time to dive into some of the special shake variants.
The most commonly used is the dry shake and the wet shake. The dry shake is shaking the beverage without ice, and the wet shake is with added ice. If you've ever tried a Pisco Sour or White Lady, then you've had a cocktail that used this type of shake. Some waiters mix it in the reverse order, but most do it dry first and then shake it with ice. Wall discovers that there are fewer, or smaller, air bubbles in foam when done in this order and considers it to be more consistent, while Bartley relies on his research on cooking methods to reason.
This whipping technique applies almost exclusively to cocktails that include egg white (or aquafaba, suitable for vegans); it's like the cocktail version for making a souffle. The technique was championed by Michael McIlroy, of Attaboy, who developed it as an efficient way to quickly dilute and emulsify ingredients that benefited from increased aeration, and many other New York waiters quickly adopted it. It is used as a more efficient way to execute the laborious Ramos Gin Fizz or as a way to add some dilution and cooling to high-strength Tiki cocktails that can get “dirty” (i.e., it also reduces ice waste, an advantage for sustainability).
