Do you prefer your Manhattan up, or your Rob Roy perfect?
Your martini shaken or stirred?
Knowing the basic procedure of cocktail creation is your first step towards receiving a drink you’ll enjoy (and staying on good terms with your favorite bartender).
Cocktail
Perfect Manhattan
- 2 oz Blended Whiskey
- ½ oz Dry Vermouth
- ½ oz Sweet Vermouth
- 1 dash Bitters
Swirl with ice to chill, pour into a cocktail glass, and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
Chaser
A drink — either alcoholic or non — to be consumed directly after a shot. This can also be referred to as a back.
Float
To layer one type of liquor (or other ingredient) on top of another; the separation occurs due to the different densities of the liquids.
Garnish
A decorative piece of fruit or other solid ingredient not incorporated into the drink.
Neat
A liquor served solo in the glass, with no ice or other interfering ingredients.
On the Rocks
A single spirit or a cocktail served over ice.
Over
Similar to “on the rocks”: a liquor or mix of liquors served over ice cubes.
Perfect
A perfect Manhattan (or Rob Roy, for that matter) contains equal parts of sweet and dry vermouth (instead of selecting one or the other.)
Shaken
In a mixed drink, where the ingredients are combined in a cocktail shaker, typically over ice. Leads to a frothy, well-integrated final product.
Sour
Typically a fruit juice — lemon or lime — added to a spirit as a mixer.
Splash
A small amount of any mixer (soda, say) added to a completed drink.
Stirred
Integrating spirits and mixers without the extreme, ice-breaking agitation of the cocktail shaker.
Straight Up
A spirit with no ice. Used interchangeably with “neat.”
Twist
A slice — or curl — of lemon peel run along the edge of the glass, and often left as garnish.
Up
Shaken or otherwise prepared with ice, but strained (now cold) into an ice-less glass.
Virgin
Non-alcoholic. Also known as a “mocktail.”
Well
A “well” drink is a mixed drink made with generic, or simply unspecified, spirits.
