You’ve seen it used in bars, you’ve heard it mentioned in videos, and you’ve read about it in articles and recipes – but what exactly IS a Boston Shaker?
Description
At its simplest, a Boston Shaker is a two-piece cocktail shaker, usually consisting of a glass and a metal tin.
A useful and common combination is a 16 oz. Mixing Glass or Pint Glass, and a 28 oz. Shaker Tin.
Some bartenders like using a 16 or 18 oz. shaker tin in place of the mixing glass half of the Boston Shaker.
Use
The Boston Shaker can be used for shaking or stirring a cocktail. This is part of the reason it’s so popular with professionals – it’s a multi-tasker.
When using a Boston Shaker you’ll need a strainer to keep the ice and other non-liquid ingredients out of the drink while you pour it into the appropriate serving glass. There are two types of strainers for the Boston Shaker.
The Hawthorn Strainer – This is the style with the coil around the edge. You place it in the metal half of the Boston Shaker, coil side down, so it can hold back the ice while you pour your shaken drink into the glass.
The Julep Strainer – This is the style that looks like a large spoon with holes in it. It’s used with the glass half of the shaker, or your mixing glass, when pouring a drink that has been stirred. It’s placed dome or curved side up into the glass and is held in place by your index finger while pouring.
There’s another post coming about the differences between shaking and stirring, so stay tuned for more info.
How to separate a Boston Shaker
Below you can see a video I did for how2heroes.com illustrating how to shake a cocktail by making a Margarita.
Although I don’t go into the opening techniques in detail, and I’ve learned a bit since then, it’s worth an overall viewing to watch the process of using a Boston Shaker for shaken cocktails. (I still hate those damn limes – they were like bricks!)
Here’s a few links to some videos that illustrate in a bit more detail.
Jaime Boudreau does a super video on Shaking a cocktail. Right around the 2 minute mark he goes into great detail on how to open the Boston Shaker. It’s really educational and totally worth the time to check it out.
How to Use a Cocktail Shaker by Duggan McDonnell on chow.com talks about setting the shaker tin at an angle to facilitate an easy release.
Reference
Not enough info for you? Here’s a few reference links below:
Great article, with a few great recipes, for bitters heavy cocktails.
…Lieberman also said that he’s been seeing a rise of drinks that call for more than just a dash of bitters. Cocktails with bitters so prominent they can be measured in ounces are starting to pop up around the country.
Bitters are often thought of as the salt and pepper of the cocktail world, adding just a touch of spice to focus and deepen the flavors of a drink. It makes sense to use them sparingly—a 4-ounce bottle of Angostura can sell for $9 or more, and it’s potent stuff, so a drop or two goes a long way. “But we’re living in an age of extreme ingredients,” says Lieberman, “everywhere you look, there’s pork belly.” So perhaps the time for the extreme use of bitters has come.
Click the link below to check out a totally fun chart of Boston’s cocktail family tree.
A family tree of the bartenders who began the craft drink movement, beginning at the B-Side, Eastern Standard, No. 9 Park, and Silvertone, and ending at the bar where you sip today. Bartenders are listed with the venue with which they are most often associated. Colored stripes below the boxes represent a connection to another branch of the bartender family tree.
We’re mentioned with some awesome company! Please read Devra’s whole article – it’s a great summary of Boston’s cocktail roots and scene.
This winter, four new establishments showcasing cocktails opened in the Boston area, all within the course of a few weeks: the Hawthorne, Brick & Mortar, Saloon, and backbar. They join the likes of Clio, Drink, Eastern Standard, the Franklin Cafe, Green Street, Rendezvous, and many other local businesses serious about cocktails. In Davis Square, you’ll find the Boston Shaker, a shop that sells nothing but cocktail paraphernalia; walk into a liquor store and you’re likely to find a dizzying array of specialty spirits.
Boston has become a hub for craft cocktails – those made with fresh, quality ingredients, often reviving recipes from decades and centuries past. It’s easy to forget that until fairly recently drinks were made with neon “sour mix’’ and a bottle of bitters was nearly impossible to come by – never mind versions made in small batches by a dozen companies, in flavors from celery to sriracha.
While fresh-squeezed fruit juices have become common on serious cocktail menus, some of America’s best bartenders are turning to vegetables to incorporate seasonal and bitter components into their drinks.
PREPARATION:
Add the rum and batter to a mug. Fill with boiling water and stir.
Hot Buttered Rum Batter
INGREDIENTS:
1 lb Butter, at room temperature
1 lb Brown sugar
1 lb Sugar
1 tbsp Ground cinnamon
1 tsp Ground cloves
1 tsp Ground nutmeg
1 qt Vanilla ice cream, softened slightly
PREPARATION:
Add all the ingredients except the ice cream to a bowl and stir to combine. Add the ice cream and stir again. Transfer to a container with a lid, seal and store in the freezer. Ideally, the batter is prepared at first frost and finished before the robins arrive. Bring it out for parties, or whenever the temperature drops below 25 degrees.
Super article from Jason Wilson. Below is some great advice on using a classic recipe and doing some simple tweaks to come up with something different and original.
In fact, without trying to ruin the livelihoods of mixologists with well-paying corporate gigs, here’s their basic, not-so-secret formula for almost all new cocktail development: Take a classic recipe from the 20th century. Replace the base spirit with another base spirit (either whatever you have on hand or, in the case of corporate mixologists, the product of whoever is paying you). More advanced home bartenders can alter the secondary spirits, change the juices, add different bitters or bring in new mixers.
For instance, switch out bourbon for apple brandy, and simple syrup for maple syrup, and your Old-Fashioned becomes an Apple Brandy Old-Fashioned. Replace gin with aquavit, and lemon with lime, and your French 75 becomes a Swedish 60. For your Manhattan, use bianco vermouth instead of sweet vermouth, replace bitters with a strange root-tea liqueur called Root, and you have a Pennsylvania Dutch Manhattan.
The article goes on to talk about some great cognac cocktails. I definitely agree with him – a cognac based Sazerac is wonderful (Old-Fashioneds too!)
Some great winter cocktail recipes from Colorado based bartenders.
The cocktails that fill the bill tend to come in amber hues, concoctions with dark, smoky notes suitable for burrowing in. These libations can help navigate the long winter nights of the soul — and keep Jack Frost at bay.
More of the story and the recipes at the link below.
Combine all ingredients with ice in a pint glass and stir until chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a Luxardo maraschino cherry. If you can’t get a genuine maraschino cherry, please skip the cherry.
In an age of complicated bar maneuvers, the methodology is mind-bendingly simple: Just throw a grapefruit twist in with the contents of a cocktail, then shake and strain.
Lanterns Keep co-owner Theo Lieberman came to the idea after a particularly long and stressful day. Since his mother had used grapefruit oils as a homeopathic remedy during his childhood, he threw a peel in with his daiquiri components. The results were surprising: “It dried the drink out, made it smoother,” he says.
This is a great video about Melissa and Jo Snow syrups. Watch it and I dare you to not feel a bit happier by the end.
Melissa ended up being that perfect kind of artisan I love to film: passionate, creative, fun, and full of life and energy. An artisan who truly loves what they do. An artisan who makes a product I’m excited to talk about. These syrups are incredible. The flavors are thought-provoking and interesting on the palette. They wake your senses, and make coffees and cocktails and sodas way more fun than you think they would.
We are happy to be one of Jo Snow’s early retailers and suggest you check out their syrups – they are fantastic.
