Shaking and Straining

The most common choice for home bartenders, this is an easy-to-use three-piece shaker with a bottom mixing cup, a built-in strainer on top, and a cap to seal it. Metal and plastic components will be less likely to break than glass. One version we liked for its ease-of-use has a built-in citrus juicer on top.

The choice of bartenders everywhere, it consists of a bottom stainless steel cup (or “tin”) and a top cup that looks like a pint glass but is made of tempered (safety) glass. The glass allows you to see your ingredients as you add them, which helps prevent error.

We double-strain cocktails into the glass using a fine-mesh conical strainer. This provides further insurance against solid ingredients ending up in your glass and also prevents errant ice shards from diluting your cocktail. We make an exception for cocktails containing egg whites; you'll get more foam on top if you single-strain.

A heavy-based, straight-sided glass with a pouring spout is our choice for stirring cocktails over ice. Since glass is a better insulator than metal, a glass mixing glass will chill your cocktail more thoroughly.

A long twizzle-handled stainless steel bar spoon is essential to achieve maximum chilling with minimal dilution when stirring drinks with ice.

This strainer predates the Hawthorne strainer and was developed for mint julep imbibers to hold over their cups to keep from getting a face full of crushed ice and mint. It fits well into a mixing glass, so we use it for stirred cocktails.

This strainer is made of a flat circular piece of metal with holes, bordered by a flexible spring. It fits neatly into a Boston shaker to catch ice and other solids. Look for one with a tight spring, which will catch smaller pieces of ice and solids and will make for better-strained cocktails.