what you need for building a cocktail

• Cocktail Jigger
• Recipe and Cocktail Ingredients how to build a cocktail

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So you’re ready to make a cocktail and you’ve gathered all your ingredients, recipe card in hand. Now what? The very first step in building a cocktail is to consider which ingredients are the most expensive (or hardest to source). Just in case there is a mistake and you have to start over, you’re not wasting your limited supplies. Let's do it!

1. To demo, we will create a simple margarita.
2. The standard building order in a cocktail bar would be to pour first lime juice, then simple syrup, then triple sec and then your tequila which is the most expensive.
3. However, most of our syrups are handcrafted (and hard to find elsewhere) but alcohol is readily available in the liquor store, in which case, I’d carefully measure and pour my syrup last.
4. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what order you pour, just as long as you measure with your jigger along the way! Measure twice, pour once. ;)

tips for building cocktails

• Get to know your tools! Familiarize yourself with your jigger ahead of time. Which line indicates 0.50 oz? Which side is 2 oz? Take a good look! (Maybe watch our video on Jiggers?) Then, practice with your preferred measuring device so you have a nice steady hand and can pour from bottle to jigger, and jigger to shaker (or beaker) with confidence.
• Did you know you can build more than one drink at a time? The standard mixing beaker and cocktail shaker can easily hold two drinks at once. That means if you become a shaking and stirring pro (from watching these videos and practicing with your kits, of course), you can make four drinks at once (two in each hand!). Dang, you're basically a mixologist already.
• Mess up? No worries! Do you remember how much you put in? If you goofed on the first ingredient, simply pour it back out into your jigger to measure it again.
• Pour the wrong amount later on? With a quick little bit of math from your recipe card, you can correct it easily. Realize you put in 2 oz for something that only needed 1 oz? Go back and double the rest of the ingredients to make a batch of two drinks instead.
• Only a smidge off? Act like a mixology pro and add the rest of the ingredients correctly. Shake/stir, then taste your cocktail, add acid or sweet to adjust.