OF ALL THE things that bartenders do behind the bar, unnecessary use of the shaker is the one thing that annoys me the most.  For most, the sound of the shaker is music to their collective ears.  It signifies that the bartender is preparing the cocktail that they just ordered.  But is he or she really preparing it, or is he or she destroying it?  Believe it or not, there is a clear set of rules to determine whether a drink should be shaken or stirred.  Most of today’s bartenders don’t know that these rules exist, so they don’t follow them, and as in real life, when you don’t follow the rules you usually get unexpected results.

So, what are the rules?  There are only two rules and they are very simple.  Shake a cocktail if the recipe includes fruit juice, sour mix, simple syrup, cream liqueurs, eggs, dairy, or any other thick or flavorful mixers.  Examples of this are the Mai Tai, Cosmopolitan, Brandy Flip, and the Margarita.  Stir a cocktail if the recipe includes distilled spirits and very light mixers only.  Examples of this are the Martini, Manhattan, Gibson, Gimlet, and Sazerac Cocktail.

You’re probably thinking that if these are the rules, then why don’t bartenders follow them?  I was never taught these rules when I was first promoted to bartender all those many years ago.  I read about them as I became interested in the history of cocktails.  My guess is that not many bartenders are aware of the rules these days.  Those who are aware of them ignore them because they are lazy.  Yes, lazy.  Doing everything the same way cuts down on steps and allows the bartender to seemingly be more efficient.  However, there is a problem with this approach.

Cocktails like the martini were developed with the method used to make them in mind.  Martinis are meant to be clear.  Stirring this cocktail doesn’t change it, it just blends the ingredients.  Shaking it not only clouds it, but changes it fundamentally.  To prove this scientifically I did an experiment.  I made two martinis, one shaken and one stirred, with the resulting cocktails strained into martini glasses.  The results are worth noting.  After about 20 seconds, the most obvious difference was that the martini that was stirred remained clear while the martini that was shaken was cloudy, but there were other subtle differences.  The shaken martini was 26 degrees Fahrenheit, 22 degrees colder than the stirred martini.  This affected the taste of the drinks.  The shaken martini was too cold for me to be able to discern the nuances of the blending of gin and vermouth.  The stirred martini was far more flavorful at 48 degrees Fahrenheit.  The most startling difference was the volume of liquid in the individual glasses.  The shaken martini had an ounce more volume than the stirred martini.  The difference was shards of ice and air introduced from the shaking process.  Obviously, the ice shards eventually melt and dilute the drink, but the introduction of air also makes a difference with respect to volume as well.  Do you really want your $17 martini to be too cold and too diluted for you to be able to enjoy the perfectly balanced blend of gin and vermouth?  Probably not.

Shaking a cocktail like a Mai Tai or a Hurricane does no harm.  Again, these drinks were developed with the knowledge that they would be shaken, so the blend of fruit juices, distillates, sugar, etc. does not fundamentally change the drink.  It does introduce the same air and ice shards, but the thickness and the flavor of the ingredients overcome this.

I’ll anticipate your next question and answer it as well.  Why does James Bond order his signature martini shaken, not stirred if the rules state that a martini should be stirred.  James Bond is a fictional character created by Ian Fleming in 1953.  Since the rules for making drinks had been around for a while by the time Mr. Fleming began writing and since he was probably aware of them, I will assume that he used that fact to help create the Bond persona — a brash, heroic, womanizing rule breaker.  He orders his drink that way, not just because he likes it that way, but because it’s not the way it should be ordered.  You, the observer, know that he should know better, which somehow makes him even more suave and debonair than he appears on the surface.  I have to believe that Fleming was clever enough to know the rules and use them to his advantage.  This is obviously just a theory, but careful consideration will show that I’m probably on to something here.

So, there you have it, cocktails shaken and stirred.  Things are so much simpler when you break them down scientifically.  These days the line between shaking and stirring has been blurred.  Mostly because things have been done differently for so long that no one knows the difference any more.  The thing to keep in mind is that most cocktails, at least the classics, were developed with the rules in mind.  That means that bending or breaking the rules takes away from the delicate balance that was intended when the cocktail was created.  A Manhattan, an Old Fashioned, a Mint Julep, a Mojito, and a Sazerac Cocktail should always be stirred.  They should not be cloudy, frothy, or bubbly when they arrive at your table.  A Hurricane, a Margarita, Mai Tai, and a Singapore Sling should always be shaken.  But if that doesn’t happen, don’t yell at the bartender.  Just ask him if he wouldn’t mind making it differently the next time.  When he asks what you mean by differently, you can say shaken or stirred– which ever is appropriate.  Then compare the differences between the two preparations.  You’ll be surprised.