Stirring

Stirring seems so pleasantly simple, like all you have to do is put some ingredients together with ice and twirl it around quietly in a glass. It's deceptive. Whereas shaking is brutish, nearly impossible to mess up. Stirring actually takes more effort and is more persnickety.

So why is stirring more of a challenge?

Equipment matters
You have to stir longer
The type of ice matters more

Why stir

When do you want to stir? When you want a crystal clear drink with no perceptible texture change. Unlike the violent act of shaking, stirring doesn't aerate your drink by forcing air bubbles into the liquid.

Stirring is a gentler way to introduce water into alcohol solutions that have very delicate, complex flavors. Think about gin botanicals, unaged Jamaican esters of funky bananas, and the aroma of pear that is often in Bourbons. A little water opens up those flavors, but too much water - too much dilution - and you can kiss these subtleties goodbye. When stirring, you're also minimizing the surface area of the solution, giving these congeners less of a chance to escape into the air and not into your face.

The soft hand of stirring also doesn't chip away at the ice. With less ice shards and chips, stirring dilutes much more slowly. And of course, it chills your drink slowly too.

What you’ll need

I have a dense bar - lots of bottles and limited space, so it is important for me to have equipment that provides multiple uses. This is why I use mixing tins for shaking, stirring, and everything else. Regardless of the vessel you use, you’ll want something that is either icy cold or has a low thermal mass. If you’re going to use a glass or crystal stirring vessel, store it in the freezer between uses. If you do not do that, your attempts at chilling your drink will be less efficient and take longer. This is because your ice is having to chill your drink and the vessel at the same time. Using a vessel with low thermal mass, like a metal mixing tin, means that your vessel chills rapidly and helps to draw the heat/energy out of your drink as you stir with ice. In other words, you spend less time stirring to make a cold drink.

The mixing tins I use are the Cocktail Kingdom Koriko Large 28 oz Tin and Cocktail Kingdom Koriko 18 oz Tin mixing tins. I can stir two drinks in the 18 oz tin, or another three drinks in the 28 oz tin.

In addition to the vessel, you need something to stir with. Most people use barspoons like these from A Bar Above. They feel better, and their weight helps them to rotate more effectively as you stir. That’s fine and dandy, but I greatly prefer to use a 9” x 8mm stainless steel straw. With a straw, I’m immediately ready to sample or strain a drink. In a pinch, I’ll use a chopstick. I’m a wrist stirrer, not one of them finger jocks.

With that said, one done I’ll splurge for a Gaz Finger Stirrer.

How to stir

Pick out a recipe that calls out to here. Here’s a list of the stirred recipes in Tipply. I’ll be making an Old Pal.

Next, get your stirring vessel ready. As mentioned above, I prefer a metal mixing tin, but you can use a pint glass, Mason jar, or something fancier. If it isn’t metal. Ideally, you’ll have chilled the vessel so it can start off cold. This will help your ingredients drop in temperature. With metal, it doesn't matter.

Put your ingredients in the stirring vessel, then add ice. What type of ice matters. When I am lazy, I use three ice cubes made with a Tovolo 1.25" Cube Mold, which is enough to rise up above the liquid. When I am not being lazy, I'll crack a few larger cubes (made with a Tovolo 2" Cube Mold mold) or ice spheres (from a Tovolo Sphere Mold) with a Lewis Bag and a mallet then add the large shards to the tin, again, to rise above the liquid. The irregular, cracked ice helps to dilute and chill faster.

Now stir for 45 - 60 seconds.

Now you're ready to pour your drink into the serving vessel. You may want to strain the ice out, but some recipes don’t call for that. Do what the recipes guide you to do, and enjoy that drink!

That's it. It doesn't seem complicated until you start thinking about having to do that for a crowd. At that point you better be ambidextrous For more practice, refer back to the list of the stirred drinks available in Tipply.