The After Dinner Edit

Picture this – it’s Saturday night and you’re seated at the buzzy new bar that just opened nearby, looking on as the bartenders expertly craft drinks guided almost entirely by the flicker of candlelight. You take a tender sip of the $26 drink that was just delicately placed in front of you.

You’re dumbfounded – could it be that the $26 price tag is actually… worth it? You’ve never had such a creamy, almost velvety drink. Light and frothy, yet still crisp and bright. How did they achieve this feat in texture? The answer is the dry shake.

What is a dry shake you ask? Dry shaking is a cocktail technique in which the ingredients are added to a cocktail shaker without ice and shaken vigorously to allow better emulsification at a warmer temperature and prevent dilution of the drink by ice during the initial mixing process. Ice is then added to the cocktail shaker for the final shake, allowing the drink to chill and dilute appropriately before straining and serving. You may be wondering: how is any of this ‘dry’? Dry in this sense refers to the lack of ice in the initial shake, whereas a ‘wet shake’ refers to shaking cocktail ingredients with ice.

Dry shaking is traditionally used in cocktails using egg white, aquafaba, and cream (think whiskey sours, gin fizzes, and flips), giving these drinks their signature mouthfeel.

The Edit – Here’s how to nail it at home:

1. Add all your liquid ingredients to a cocktail shaker (except for the ice)
2. Shake these ingredients vigorously for 20-30 seconds until fully emulsified – the resulting mixture should be foamy in appearance.
3. Add ice cubes (preferably larger in size, avoid nugget ice/ice chips as these can overly dilute your drinks) and shake until chilled.
4. Strain into your glass of choice and enjoy your cocktail lounge-worthy drink!

Note: some cocktails such as the Ramos Gin Fizz may need a longer dry shake to achieve the proper texture

Variation:

The Reverse Dry Shake : This method ideal for cocktails with egg white or aquafaba as it leads to a frothier texture. Here’s how to do it:

1. Combine all ingredients (including ice) except for your egg white/aquafaba in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for 30 seconds.
2. Strain the contents using a fine mesh strainer to remove the ice.
3. Re-add this chilled mixture to your cocktail shaker and add your egg white/aquafaba. Shake vigorously until frothed to your liking.
4. Strain into a glass of your choice.

Our advice? Share the secret! Invite your people over, line up the bottles, and make a night of mastering the dry shake together. Start with a crowd-pleasing Whiskey Sour, move on to a Gin Fizz, and end somewhere ambitious — a Ramos Gin Fizz for the committed. The drinks will be excellent. And you’ll find, as you always do when people slow down long enough to make something together, that the evening goes exactly the way the best evenings always do — far too quickly.