Guides
Learn the fundamentals of mixology, from simple syrup to building your home bar
How to Make Simple Syrup
Simple syrup is the backbone of countless cocktails. Learn how to make it at home in minutes.
Read guide →Shaken vs Stirred — What's the Difference?
Should you shake or stir your cocktail? The answer matters more than you think.
Read guide →How to Set Up a Home Bar
Everything you need to start mixing great cocktails at home — without spending a fortune.
Read guide →Cocktail Glassware Guide
Which glass for which drink? A practical guide to the most common cocktail glasses.
Read guide →A Guide to Dessert Wines
Tokaji, Port, Sauternes, Eiswein, TBA — the world's greatest sweet wines explained, with legendary producers and celebrated vintages.
Read guide →How to Clarify Cocktails
Clarification transforms cloudy cocktails into crystal-clear drinks without losing any flavour. Learn milk washing, centrifuge techniques and agar clarification at home.
Read guide →Fat Washing Spirits
Fat washing infuses spirits with savoury, rich flavours — from bacon bourbon to sesame whisky and brown butter rum. Learn the technique step by step.
Read guide →Oleo Saccharum — Citrus Oil Syrup
Oleo saccharum is the secret ingredient in great punches and many modern cocktails. Sugar draws essential oils directly from citrus peel, creating an intensely aromatic, bright syrup in under two hours.
Read guide →Cocktail Garnishes — Technique & Style
A great garnish does more than look good — it adds aroma, signals flavour and completes the drink. Learn citrus twists, expressed peels, dehydrated wheels, herbs and edible flowers.
Read guide →How We Built Alcohol-Free Versions of 100 Classic Cocktails
Ingredient-by-ingredient substitutes that stay close to the original flavor profile — plus an honest look at what works and what hits a ceiling.
Read guide →The Freezer Door Old Fashioned
Batch a whole bottle of Old Fashioned, park it in the freezer and pour it straight over ice all summer long. The one-number trick that makes it work.
Read guide →What Was the First Cocktail?
Before "cocktail" meant any mixed drink it was one specific recipe, defined in a New York newspaper in 1806. Here is what you would have been served, and where the strange word came from.
Read guide →How Long Do Opened Bottles Last?
Spirits barely change, vermouth goes stale in weeks and fresh lime juice peaks within hours. A practical shelf-life guide for everything in the home bar.
Read guide →Ice for Cocktails: Types, Size and Clear Ice
Ice is an ingredient, not a garnish. Which ice to use for shaking, stirring and serving, why size matters in the glass and how to make clear ice in an ordinary freezer.
Read guide →Batching Cocktails for a Party
Mix the drinks before the guests arrive. How to scale a recipe, how much water to add, which drinks batch well and which parts must wait until serving.
Read guide →Bar Tools: What You Need and What You Can Skip
Boston, cobbler or French shaker, jiggers, strainers and bar spoons. A short guide to the tools that actually matter in a home bar, and what to use if you have none.
Read guide →Vermouth: Sweet, Dry and Blanc
The bottle behind the Martini, Manhattan and Negroni. What vermouth is, the main styles, which drinks use which, and why it belongs in the fridge.
Read guide →Gin and Dubonnet: The Royal Aperitif
Two parts Dubonnet, one part gin, a slice of lemon under the ice. The drink linked to both the Queen Mother and Elizabeth II, what is documented and what is hearsay.
Read guide →Celebrity Drinks: What Is True and What Is Legend
Hemingway, James Bond, the White House, the Savoy and two cult screen drinks. Sorted by how well each story holds up: documented, likely or legend.
Read guide →Hemingway's Drinks: Daiquiri, Absinthe and a Pitcher of Bloody Mary
Ernest Hemingway left more drink recipes in his own hand than almost any other writer. The Papa Doble, Death in the Afternoon and his Bloody Mary, and what is myth.
Read guide →The Vesper: James Bond's Own Martini
Gin, vodka and Kina Lillet, shaken until ice cold. The drink Bond invents in Casino Royale, the friend who really mixed it, and how to make it now that Kina Lillet is gone.
Read guide →White House Drinks: Roosevelt's Martini, Truman's Old Fashioned and Kennedy's Daiquiri
Three presidents, three classics. What the archives say about Franklin D. Roosevelt mixing his own martinis, the Trumans' Old Fashioned and the Kennedy daiquiri.
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