Okay, the training in the Novice Village has been completed, and now we are going to move on to the next stage!

If we have to classify cocktails, they can be roughly divided into two main categories: Cocktail and Sour . The former is a cocktail prepared in the form of a cocktail (Cocktail was originally just a way of preparing drinks, and it evolved into a general term for cocktails. If you want to know more about this history, you can read this article ). It is usually prepared by stirring, has a high alcohol concentration, uses bitters to add flavor, and has few auxiliary ingredients ; the latter is usually prepared by shaking, adding sour fruit juice and sugar (or sweet wine), has a popular taste, and has a high proportion of auxiliary ingredients .

Cocktail classics: Martini, the king of cocktails

Sour's classic: Harry's masterpiece - White Lady

In this article, let’s start with the items to be prepared for sour cocktails.

The basis of Sour is composed of three ingredients: wine, sweet and sour . The wine can be strong liquor or sweet wine; the sweetness can be syrup or sweet wine; the sour refers to the juice, mainly citrus fruits (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, etc.)

As for the wine, we have already obtained the four major base wines: gin, tequila, rum, and vodka in the Novice Village.

For the sweet part, the first liqueur to buy is Cointreau. This can be said to be a must-have item for bartenders and is also the most recommended first bottle of liqueur. It is a very commonly used liqueur for both basic and advanced levels!

In addition to using Cointreau as a source of sweetness, the other most frequently used ingredient is homemade syrup. Yes, it is "pure syrup" without any additives other than sugar and water.

The preparation of pure syrup is very simple. First, prepare a clean empty bottle. If you want to save money, it is recommended to use an empty vodka or soda bottle because they do not need to be processed separately! (Choose a glass bottle that has been used to hold other things. It is recommended to wash it and boil it in water to sterilize it. Make sure there is no odor and air dry it before using it to ensure that the syrup can be stored for a long time).

DIY-001 Homemade Syrup

1. Prepare sugar, water and a pan.

The ratio of sugar to water can be 1:1 or 1.5:1, with 1:1 having a moderate taste. The syrup made with 1.5:1 tastes richer and the cocktail made with less water, but the higher the ratio of sugar, the better, because when the ratio of sugar to water is 2:1, it will be found that it cannot be dissolved.

2.

3. Cook over medium heat while stirring. When all the sugar has dissolved and bubbles begin to appear at the bottom, turn off the heat and let cool. Do not let it boil as the edges may burn.

4. After cooling, pour into a sealed bottle and refrigerate for later use.

Homemade white sugar syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for more than three months. If there is any suspended matter, it means it has gone bad, so please do not use it.)

After getting Cointreau orange liquor and making your own syrup, you can then mix six very classic cocktails!

The classic rum cocktail: Daiquiri

At this time, you also need to buy a Shaker.

Those of us who often drink hand-shaken drinks should be familiar with the three-piece shaker. It consists of an upper cover, a middle cover and a bottom cup. It is one of the essential tools for cocktail making, as it cools and mixes the ingredients evenly by shaking.

The three-piece shaker has an ice filter in the middle cover, which is used to prevent ice from flowing into the finished product, because short-drink cocktails (Note 1) are not served with ice. The two-section shaker is also called the Boston shaker, and is usually used to make cocktails with more juice or dairy products.

Note 1: Cocktails can be divided into the following categories based on how they are drunk:

Long Drink: Usually served with ice cubes, with a larger volume, a higher proportion of auxiliary ingredients, and a medium to low alcohol concentration.

Short Drink: Usually no ice is added when drinking, the volume is small, the proportion of auxiliary ingredients is also small, and the alcohol concentration is medium to high.

※The above is just a rough classification. Some cocktails are difficult to distinguish between long drinks and short drinks using these dimensions.

How to choose a good shaker? A good shaker must meet two conditions. First, it must be made of food-grade stainless steel, and second, it must have a good fit (Note 2).

Note 2: To know whether the seal of a shaker is good or not, you only need to do a simple test: add room temperature water and shake it directly; because when adding ice cubes and shaking it, the gaps in the shaker will freeze, making the seal super good, but room temperature water does not have this effect. At this time, a shaker with poor seal will leak and show its true shape.

Next, you need a jigger, which can measure the volume of the required materials. Accurately grasping the proportions can maintain the stability of the finished product! From this stage, you can no longer add materials based on your mood.

Regarding wine recipes, it is recommended to read this article: How to read a wine recipe?

Finally, prepare the juicer and lemon, and you can start making sour cocktails!

Cocktail Mission

Cocktail-007/Daiquiri

First, squeeze the juice. Cut the lemon in half and put it into the juicer. Press hard to get fresh lime juice.

Then measure 60ml of rum, 15ml of lime juice and 20ml of homemade syrup into a shaker.

Fill with ice, cover, and shake for about 20 seconds.

Open the top cover, hold the middle cover and the bottom cup tightly with your hands (to avoid the middle cover falling off and the whole cup splashing), pour the wine into the martini glass, and you're done!

Huh? Didn't we say we were going to make a Sour? Why did we end up making a Daiquiri?

In fact, Daiquiri is made by mixing rum (sweet and sour) in the form of Sour, which is Rum Sour, but because this method of mixing is so delicious, it has an independent name!

Further reading - Daiquiri

We also recommend you try other base liquors. Just replace the rum and you can make the following cocktails:

Gin Sour

Tequila Sour

Vodka Sour

This is the first time we use the shaking method to make cocktails in this unit. Try it. It’s still wine and juice, with a sour and sweet taste, but can you feel the effect of alcohol concentration on the taste?

It is no longer as light as a 1on1 cocktail (similar to drinking juice), but instead has a thick feeling of high alcohol concentration. If you drink it quickly, will you feel a little burning sensation in your stomach?

Okay, for beginners, this may raise a question:

"Is the taste I prepared correct (tasty)?"

Beginners can practice more. When you think your cocktails are delicious, it is recommended to go to a professional cocktail bar and ask a bartender to order one. Then you will know whether your cocktails are correct.

Remember the Cointreau we mentioned above? Now we’re going to use it in our cocktails!

Cointreau Orange Liquor is a sweet liquor made from neutral distilled liquor, sugar and orange peel. Although it is unacceptably sweet to drink directly, I still hope you will try it pure before using it in cocktails.

It's very sweet, like drinking syrup, right? But the burning sensation in your esophagus will let you know it's a real strong liquor... Finally, take a look at the aroma. Isn't the taste of dried orange peel very obvious?

Yes, this is Cointreau, a bottle of sweet wine that is a must-have for bartenders.

The basic formula of Sour is " sweet and sour " . Cointreau can provide sweetness and will not reduce the alcohol content when used in short cocktails. It can also be paired with and set off many base liquors. Therefore, in addition to classic cocktails, Cointreau is also used by bartenders to modify the taste of cocktails.

Now that we have Cointreau, let's use it to make three classic cocktails! The first one we made with rum is XYZ

Cocktail Mission

Cocktail-008/X.Y.Z.（X.Y.Z.）

Material

60ml rum

15ml lemon juice

20ml Cointreau orange liqueur

practice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker, add ice cubes and shake evenly, strain out the ice and pour into a martini glass.

If the ratio is the same, after mixing, you will find that XYZ is not as delicious as Daiquiri. It is also sour and sweet, but it seems to be a little sour. After entering the throat, there will be a bitter taste on the tongue, right?

Why is there such a difference? Let's start with the wine list.

The recipe for Daiquiri is: 60ml rum, 15ml lemon juice, 20ml homemade syrup

The recipe for XYZ is: 60ml rum, 15ml lemon juice, 20ml Cointreau

The amount of rum and lemon juice is the same, the difference lies in the homemade syrup and Cointreau. Although Cointreau is sweet, it is still not as sweet as pure syrup, and Cointreau is a strong liquor, which makes the alcohol concentration of the two glasses very different. The former has 63% of the material with an alcohol concentration of 40% (rum), while the latter has 84% ​​(rum and Cointreau).

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t finished it, let’s leave it for a while and mix the next one first.

Cocktail Mission

Cocktail-009/Balalaika

Material

60ml vodka

15ml lemon juice

15ml Cointreau orange liqueur

5ml homemade syrup

practice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker, add ice cubes and shake evenly, strain out the ice and pour into a martini glass.

In addition to changing the base liquor from rum to vodka, this method also replaces Cointreau with 5ml of homemade syrup (if you don’t know how to measure 5ml, you can use a wine measuring cup to first measure 15ml of Cointreau (add to the scale line), and then fill it up with syrup to make 5ml (the small side is filled up to 20ml)).

Did you feel that the second cup was more approachable? With slightly more sweetness and less alcohol, the tongue seemed less stressed, and the astringent taste at the end was not as obvious?

At this time, please take the first glass of XYZ that you just drank and try it. Does it become hard to drink after the temperature rises? The alcohol is very stimulating, spicy, and obviously sour, and the feeling left on your tongue is not very comfortable?

Don’t finish the second cup either, leave it aside while we make the third cup first.

Cocktail Mission

Cocktail-010/White Lady

Material

60ml Gin

15ml lemon juice

15ml Cointreau orange liqueur

5ml homemade syrup

practice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker, add ice cubes and shake evenly, strain out the ice and pour into a champagne glass.

This cup has the same ratio, but the vodka is replaced with gin. Does it taste more refreshing? Is the astringent and uncomfortable taste reduced?

But…if you let the third cup return to room temperature, it will taste the worst…high alcohol concentration plus sour taste, most people probably can’t drink it at all. What about the second cup at this time? Fortunately, the high sweetness makes it have a mellow taste even when it is heated up.

There is no better or worse ratio of the ingredients in the above three cups. Our drinking preferences will change over time and depend on how long it takes to drink a cup. These three cups are just to master the characteristics of Cointreau and feel the impact of changes in sourness, sweetness, alcohol content and temperature on the flavor of the cocktail.

When a newbie is mixing cocktails, he or she may try using Cointreau and syrup together. This ensures that the flavor of the finished product retains the characteristics of the base liquor without being overshadowed by the Cointreau, and that it is not as monotonous as a cocktail that only has sour and sweet ingredients.

The balance between acidity, sweetness and alcohol content is very delicate. When the beer is cold (just shaken and poured), it is not necessary to have a too sweet taste, because the mouth can accept a high alcohol concentration and prefer a refreshing taste at low temperatures. However, for drinkers who drink too slowly, when the temperature rises, the high sweetness can mask the uncomfortable astringency of the sour taste and the irritation of alcohol.

To see the subtle differences, I suggest you mix a few more cups and taste them carefully.