Cocktail Secrets

Mixology has its own language which can be confusing if you’re reading a recipe and it wants you to float a splash of this or add a dash of that. So here’s the skinny on these bartending terms.

Dash: This is the tiniest common recipe measurement. It’s generally considered to be equivalent to 1/32 oz. However most measuring devices don’t measure that small of a quantity. Basically just a few drops is all you need for a dash. Be sure not to confuse dash with its big brother, splash. A splash is over eight times as much!

Splash: A splash is an imprecise measurement left to the discretion of the mixologist (that’s you!). It is quite a bit more than a dash, but generally considered to be less than 1/2 oz. 1/4 oz. is a safe amount to splash.

Float: This is when you hold your breath and lie on your back in the water, this is opposed to a floatie, which is something floating in your drink that is not supposed to be there. All right, really, a float is a final ingredient poured carefully on top of the other ingredients of a drink. Usually the other ingredients will have been shaken or already stirred before you pour your float because floating is the last step before completing your cocktail with garnishment. Depending on the ingredient, and how carefully you want it floated, you can just pour the ingredient in slowly; or you can pour it over the back of a spoon, or down the handle of a barspoon.

I’ve had more bad Long Island Ice Teas than I’ve had good ones. And that’s somewhat understandable. The Long Island Ice Tea is a very challenging cocktail to mix correctly. With 5 different liquors (rum, vodka, gin, tequila and triple sec) and a host of different manufacturers for each liquor there’s 9,757,237,539 different combinations of Long Island Iced Tea possible!

Given all of this, I wasn’t expecting too much from Desert Island’s pre made cocktail mix. It’s just too easy to screw up a Long Island Iced Tea. But when expectations are low, that’s when you get the most surprises. And you guessed it - Desert Island is quite decent. So much so that many of the bars where I’ve ordered a Long Island Iced Tea should quietly pick up a bottle of Desert Island and stop embarrassing themselves.

In addition to the bottle of Desert Island, you’ll need to pick up some Sweet & Sour mix and some Coke. The recommended recipe is 2 oz of Desert Island Long Island Iced Tea Mix, 4 oz of Sweet & Sour mix and 2 oz of Coke. It’s a decent starting point, but do experiment. I personally found 3 oz of Desert Island, 3 oz of Sweet & Sour and 1 oz of Coke to better suit my tastes. Your milage may very, but feel free to experiment.

Feel free to try Desert Island Long Island Iced Tea Mix by itself over ice. It’s actually quite good all on it’s own. With summer time fun just around the corner, this is one cocktail mix you should have in your cabinet. The cocktails are quick to make and have an enjoyable taste and pack a respectable bit of alcoholic punch.

Jigger & Pony: Maybe it’s the name of the pub you were at last night but got too drunk to remember - but more than likely it’s something of an old fashioned measuring device that looks like 2 different sized metal shot glasses with the bottoms sauldered together.

Jigger and Ponys are used to measure ingredients when mixing drinks. The larger capacity side is called the “Jigger” and the smaller capacity side is called the “Pony”. Sometimes these are called a double-ended jigger - but that sounds more like an overweight Irish dancer to me.

While they come in different sizes, the most useful Jigger and Pony is probably the 3/4 oz x 1 oz size. That combination allows you to quickly measure not only 3/4 oz and 1 oz, but 1-1/2 oz (which is two 3/4 oz shots) and 2 oz (two 1 oz shots).
You’ll need to be careful where you purchase this particular bar tool, I once bought one from a grocery store and couldn’t figure out what measurement they were using, but it sure wasn’t 3/4 oz or 1 oz or 1-1/2 oz. While completely and utterly biased, it’s hard to beat the Jigger & Ponys in the HomeBarSupplys.com store.

A substitute for a Jigger & Pony is a measuring shot glass that has the measurements etched into the glass, the nice thing with these is you know exactly where to stop pouring, they also have smaller measurements marked on the glass, going down to .5 ounces. I had four of these originally that now have no markings on them because they’ve been washed so much! You can find the precise measuring shot glasses here.