Mixing Perfection

Decades ago, I could not make a decent cocktail. It never tasted as good as the ones in bars and restaurants or the ones my husband made. I followed recipes. I always wound up asking him to fix it for me. I noticed he added more liquor and bang, it was good! Once I learned that, I learned to make great cocktails. For me, tasting is critical to get the right balance, not too tart, not too sweet.

I started testing recipes by mixing a cocktail and my husband and I tasted it, I adjusted. It took weeks and weeks to perfect a recipe because with just the two of us tasting, we would become inebriated before trying too many recipes. There was no way I was going to waste a cocktail by throwing it away.

Next, I tried making cocktails using tablespoons instead of ounces. When I was happy with the taste I made a full cocktail. That method did not work out well after all. It seems that tablespoons are finicky. When you convert to ounces, it doesn’t taste the same at all.

Finally, I found the answer! First, I narrowed the recipe options down a bit and chose the ingredients I was going to use. I had tasting parties with three friends. I laid out all the options on the kitchen island, the cocktail shaker, glasses, ice and a notebook. I mixed one drink and split it four ways. We all took tasted and shared our thoughts. I made some adjustments and mixed another. We tasted again. We repeated until everyone exclaimed: This is the one! People mostly had liked earlier recipes, some were clearly not great, but we all knew when we got it right. It is all about the balance.

Diane