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Bartending Tips

What is a Dry Shake

Bartender straining a cocktail into a coupe glass using a shaker and strainer

What is a Dry Shake

When you’re going for a cocktail that contains creams and or eggs it is common to do a “ first shake “ of the mixture without ice, before doing so again with ice. 

This is called “ Dry Shaking “ and the reason behind it is that when you’re shaking without ice the content inside the shaker will be at higher temperature which helps allow the drink to emulsify better producing a thicker foam on top of the finished cocktail.

You will also see some bartenders placing a spring from a Hawthorne strainer into the shake for the “ dry shake “ as this could help as a whisk inside the shaker and produce more foam. We find this quite unnecessary with personal preference against it since it is quite hard to clean afterwards and is not optimal when you are serving lots of drinks.

Dry shaking in it self is actually amazing and does produce more foam then conventional shaking but you know what does it even better ?

Reverse
Dry Shaking

Here’s an interesting way that was discovered not so long ago. Combine all your ingredients in the shaker except for the creams and or eggs, and shake conventionally.

Afterwards pour this liquid from the bigger part of the shaker into the smaller one, discard the ice left in the bigger part, add the eggs/cream and shake again.

This will actually produce an amazing texture with lots of foam just don’t forget to strain it with a fine mesh strainer at the end.

As always… Sköl !

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