The Major Difference For Shaking Cocktails Wet And Dry
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Mastering the art of mixology takes years, but understand a few basics, and you can get shaking and impressing guests the next time you host. You, of course, won't get very far without a cocktail shaker set and Hawthorn strainer. One of the most fundamental differences is knowing that a wet shake is with ice and a dry shake without, but there's also knowing why we have both.
Cocktail shaking affects your drink in three ways: aeration, temperature, and dilution. A dry shake maximizes the first, while a wet shake influences the other two. Cocktails that use cream, egg whites, or vegan alternatives like aquafaba are shaken dry to build foam and give the drink a thick, velvety mouthfeel. The more common wet shake chills the cocktail and lightly dilutes it to balance flavors.
So, the next time you have a frothy cocktail like a whiskey sour, you'll know that the foam head results from a dry shake, while the drink's chilled temperature and balanced taste come from the wet shake. If you're with us so far, here's a quick test — what kind of shake does James Bond's martini get? If you answered a wet shake, you're right! However, purists have pointed out that the right way to make a martini is to stir it or use the age-old cocktail-throwing technique.
The difference between a wet and dry shake is the ice
The most common way of making a frothy drink (apart from using aerated drinks, which are never shaken) involves mixing all the ingredients and giving them a dry shake to build the foam, followed by a quick wet shake with ice to chill the cocktail. There are multiple reasons to leave out ice during the foam-building stage, a crucial one being that emulsification and aeration are better in warmer temperatures. It's the same reason chefs use room-temperature eggs when whipping egg whites.
So, to get down to it, start by pouring all your cocktail ingredients into the shaking tin, including your frothing agent of choice. Seal the tin and shake it for about 20 seconds (with more experience, you can reduce it to 10 seconds). Next, add ice to the mix and shake again until you feel the surface of the shaker getting very cold. This is a sign your cocktail has chilled, and you can then use a Hawthorn strainer to pour it out without getting any stray bits of ice into the cocktail.
You can combine the wet and dry shake if you're in a hurry or making multiple cocktails. Put all the ingredients, as well as the ice, into the cocktail shaker and give it an extended shake. It's not the best way to do it, but it'll still give your cocktail a frothy head while cutting down the two-shake process to a single shake.
Balancing wet and dry cocktail shaking lets you control the foam
While the dry-to-wet shaking method described above is the staple, other methods exist, including the more complicated "reverse shake." As the name suggests, the order is reversed, and the cocktail is first shaken with ice, strained to get rid of the unmelted ice cubes, and then given a dry shake. But does it make a difference? Opinions on that differ.
One way that a reverse shake changes things is that it results in a lighter, more voluminous foam with bigger bubbles. Remember how the ice cubes are strained out before the dry shake? This means that when the drink is finally poured into the glass after a dry shake, it doesn't need to be strained, which allows the foam to be thicker. So, for a cocktail with a pillowy foam head, try reverse shaking it.
While you'll get away with a regular shake or even the single-step "combined" shake most of the time, some drinks (like a piña colada) can benefit from the extra foam. To get even more adventurous with making foam, take the spring off your Hawthorn strainer and drop it into the cocktail tin during a dry shake. This will agitate the ingredients even more, giving you the fluffiest cocktail foam imaginable. And to get the right aesthetic effect, use an appropriate glass for that cocktail!