Newb question: Purpose of a mixing glass?
Posted Jun 27, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC
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You can technically stir a cocktail in any glass, but these have a wide, heavy bottom to prevent it from tipping over as you stir (without having to hold the glass with your hand). This is especially helpful if you are stirring with one hand and shaking with the other. Also the pour spout helps pour smoothly so it doesn't introduce air bubbles, which is the whole reason to stir in the first place.
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Also holding it would transfer heat thus melting the ice and adding more dilution at a warmer temp than desired.
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Yep I work at a bar and regularly reach for the mixing glass if I have a couple cocktails I’m shaking as well. I can shake with my left arm and then stir with my right and maximize efficiency.
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The different end result between stirring and shaking is a textural one, not a dilution/temperature one. If you shake, you incorporate big air bubbles, which affect the texture. That’s why you shake drinks with citrus, ginger, honey, fruit juice, egg, cream. The pectin or proteins do well with the incorporation of air and get a bit foamy.
You stir booze-only drinks so that you do not incorporate air into the equation. You end up with a creamy texture that works well with martinis, manhattans.
Therefore 1: there is an in-between, like throwing, or swizzling, or blending, that also make their own textures without necessarily changing chill or dilution. A thrown Negroni opens up the vermouth and has a different mouthfeel than one that was shaken or stirred.
Therefore 2: The temperature and dilution is a big point of contention. Dave Arnold showed that temperature and dilution of a drink go hand in hand. You can stir a drink to 0 degrees and you can shake a drink to 0 degrees and the dilution will be the same for both. He adds that you need a bit of movement and a disparity of temperature to substantially change the temp/dilution. So, if you’ve stirred a martini down to temperature in a glass, and then let it sit, it won’t really change dilution or temperature much just by sitting unmoving.
Therefore 3: the specific tool you have pictured there is somewhat for show and somewhat for function in a busy bar. Metal mixing vessels are better all around as they are conductors and glass vessels are insulators. So heat doesn’t escape glass as well as it does metal. The way you can fix this is by keeping your glass in a freezer before use. The heavy weight, however makes for an easier-to-use tool behind a busy bar, as you can stir with one hand, without stabilizing the mixing glass with the other hand. If you try this with a Boston tin, you’ll probably spill the thing.
Edit: Therefore 4: if you’re at home, you can use plenty of vessels for mixing: tins, glasses, jars, etc. But if you want a nice looking piece, there’s nothing wrong with a cool mixing glass.
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Thanks for taking the time to post this. I appreciate it!
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Not to mention that, in #1, swizzling is kinda cool. I don't have a swizzler so I just use a long bar spoon with a twisted handle and spin it between my palms. Seems to work just as well.
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Please keep talking I could listen all day
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Damn. Well done.
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I was just going to say mixing
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Lol, therefore 5: mixing
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For mixing certain cocktails in. Some drinks are better mixed and strained and some work better shaken and strained. Basically it's all about the dilution of water into your drink. A shaken martini can have a different taste or mouth feel than a stirred one. This has been my pretentious Ted Talk for today.
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Not at all. This is the info I was looking for. Thanks!
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I'm kinda disappointed you didn't finish it with "Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk" instead.
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I'm disappointed with this comment so its win win.
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Hello. There is a lot of good info in the comments but the “why” hasn’t really been answered.
Mixing glass is practical in that it is less conductive than the metal tin you would use for shaking. The thicker glass wall means that your spirits have longer to sit on the ice and both chill and dilute to a pleasurable abv. Others mentioned that it is for dilution purposes but I thought it would be helpful if someone elaborated.
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Shaker tins have a much lower thermal mass compared to a mixing glass. Tins won't affect the temperature or dilution while glass will. A glass will cause a drink that is properly diluted to have a higher finishing temperature. If you want to continue to stir the drink to reach the proper temperature more dilution will occur. This can be negated by chilling your mixing glass before using it.
Source: Liquid Intelligence
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I could keep it in the freezer but space is at a premium (wife seems to think food takes precedence). So I would probably chill it the same way I do martini glasses: fill with ice and let it sit while I get everything together, then toss the ice, refill with fresh ice and mix. Simple as long as I remember to do it.
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Ice water before is definitely going to cover your bases just as well as the freezer. Even a pre-stir with ice water would be a good method, rather than letting it sit.
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This is an important distinction to make! Metal is reactive while glass insulates. Thanks for saying it.
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Your tabs do be kind of sus tho ngl.
Edit: Is that meme still funny?
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no
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I don't know. I'm just commenting to point out there seems to be an open porno tab in your browser.
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The purpose of the mixing glass is mixing.
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I was looking for the response that simply said "mixing" but this is close enough
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PORN!!
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Mixing
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Gives a place to stir, you can stir pretty much anywhere as long as it works.
Pro tip, erase your tabs before posting on the internet
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All booze cocktails such as martinis, manhattans and such should be stirred. Do so in the mixing glass and strain with a julep strainer. Those with citrus really need to be shaken in order to blend the flavors and emulsification.
Does that help?
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Very helpful, thank you!
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A Hawthorne strainer works fine as well. I bought a julep strainer for the hell of it, but I pretty much always use my Hawthorne strainer. It's just easier to use the Hawthorne for any type of drink in my experience.
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And if you don’t have a mixing glass, if you have a coffee press, you could double duty it as a mixing glass as well.
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Just a plain old pint glass is fine as a mixing glass too. Although I do love the mixing glass I own. Using it feels fancy haha!
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I’ve broken myself from using pint glasses when I had one split on the bottom when I went to mix a martini and it fell and broke in the speed well ice bin, during a busy lunch rush, and it took me 30 minutes to clear it out and reload it, all the while grabbing server drink orders, running to make them in the other well, holy shit. Nightmare.
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As others have said, stirring vs shaking usually depends on whether or not there are citrus juices or egg in the cocktail. Shaking aerates the drink, and really mixes it well, but it also can make clear drinks cloudy, due to the fact that it produces a ton of tiny ice shards and extra aeration. Both mixing methods chill the drink and provide dilution, but shaking achieves these results faster.
So, drinks mostly get shaken, unless they started out clear, and you want to preserve that clear look and avoid a slightly "slushy" mouthful.
Then, why have a special mixing glass, instead of just stirring in a shaker tin that you already have?
Well, metal conducts heat faster than glass. Stirring takes longer than shaking to get the drink down to the desired temperature, especially since proper stirring technique is to place the back of your bar spoon against the side of the glass, and basically push the ice in a gentle circle. You're trying to avoid breaking the ice up, therefore the drink takes longer to chill. Add in a metal tin conducting external heat in to the drink, and it's going to take even longer.
The net result of all of this is that, if you stir in a metal tin, you're likely to over dilute the drink by the time it gets down to the desired temperature. Having a glass mixing glass reduces the dilution of your stirred drinks.
Also, when you shake a drink, it almost all gets to the same temperature right away, and by the time the outside of the tin is frosty, you know that the drink inside is cold. If you stir in a metal tin, the outside gets frosty almost immediately, as the metal tin quickly conducts and loses heat to the ice inside. But, the drink may not be completely cold when that happens. You may need to keep stirring a bit longer. Whereas, with a glass vessel, by the time the outside is frosted, you can be sure that the inside is thoroughly cold.
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What is the application of a mixing glass versus a shaker?
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Typically, cocktails with fruit juice are shaken. Consider a juiceless cocktail like an old fashioned that you would stir in a mixing glass with ice, then strain vs a whiskey sour that you would shake with lemon juice.
You would shake cocktails like a cosmo, rum runner, tom Collins etc. because those all are made with fruit juice. Manhattans, OFs, and other simple cocktails can be stirred.
Edit: As others have mentioned, dilution is something else to consider in some cocktails
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Fantastic explanation, thank you!
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You are a scholar and a gentleman.
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some cocktails are typically stirred, some are typically shaken
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Can attest...
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A shaking cocktail has a great deal of air mixed in which changes the feel and texture of the drink. A stirred cocktail will be smoother with a more decadent feel. Anything with citrus is usually shaken because it brings out a lot of those bright flavors. A lot of subtler drinks do well with mixing.
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Stiring cocktails rather than shaking? I've seen Old Fashioneds made in glasses like that before.
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As others have said, some cocktails like Manhattans and martinis need to be stirred rather than shaken. That particular mixing glass has a pour spout which makes it much easier to strain and pour into your drinking glass. If you just use a regular glass with no pour spout, it tends to spill down the side when you pour.
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You can mix in a glass or a tin, what matters is that you are stirring rather than shaking and aerating. You can shake a Manhattan or martini, it will look cloudy for a bit and may have more dilution than if you stirred it for a similar time because you’ve moved more of the liquid over the ice through the shaking (more surface area in contact with ice). People use glass because it looks nice. I have a mixing glass as well as a stainless steel mixing tin. I prefer the tin for better thermal performance. Metal has a lower specific heat than glass, so you can make drinks for multiple people without the changing glass temperature between the first and last drink affecting the dilution rate. Check out the book Liquid Intelligence for some great explanations on this!
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Like many others have comment it's for mixing properly and yes you probably could use another glass just as well but if your halfway serious about cocktails you should buy one. They are durable due to thicker glass, looks professional and will not tip over when mixing.
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It’s an aesthetic thing for me.
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All other reasons aside: because it looks good
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Obviously like others have said it's for stirring VS shaking, but why a special glass for stirring instead of just stirring in the drinking glass for drinks served over a large cube or on the rocks?
Basically when you're stirring you start dilution. If you're stirring a cocktail in the glass it's being sipped out of you're diluting it and melting the ice and by the time it gets to your guest it's over diluted and the ice is melted a lot.
Stir in this, then pour over fresh ice that hasn't started melting yet and you get a cold, properly diluted drink that isn't watered down by the time it gets to your guest.
This. And the pour itself creates aeration and mixing too, causing a more even drink to be landing on that fresh cube.
I second both of the comments above. You may be thinking, can I just mix the cocktail in a pint glass and accomplish the same thing? Yes, but mixing glasses look way cooler and are easier to work with.
This is the entire reason I’ll be buying one. Sure, a shaker tin works just as well but do I look as good making it that way? Does it give me the fizz? It’s about that second kind of cool.
Pro tip: put your left hand behind your back while you stir with your right. Doesn’t even matter what you’re mixing and you’ll look like a pro. Haha.
The point about fresh ice is just plain wrong, I don't why people believe that. The sole point of fresh ice is a nicer looking drink
Is there a source for either argument? Fresh ice is way below zero while the ice that’s been stirred is closer.
It’s not as significant either way. The heat absorbed to melt a given amount of ice is much greater than the amount to raise its temperature, unless we’re talking about a very very cold freezer.
Melting a gram of ice will absorb about 333 joules. Warming a gram of ice will absorb about 2 joules per degree C. So if you take it all the way down to -150 Celsius, you still get most of the cooling from the melting instead of the ice’s temperature.
A typical freezer temperature is more like -18 C, which will give you about 10% as much heat absorbed due to its temperature as you get from the ice melting.
The rate of heat transfer is directly proportional to the surface area of an object.
As the rate of heat transfer increases with surface area, ice melts faster if the same volume of ice has a greater surface area.
So the more scuffed and broken up a piece of ice is, the faster it will melt.
Probably not all that significant, unless you’re stirring over cracked ice and using a whole cube/sphere for the drink (that would be a significant difference) but still would make an impact.
Nah. Larger ice melts slower. The shards you have in the mixing glass will melt quicker and you’ll have a watered down drink faster.
Dave Arnold talks about this in his book Liquid Intelligence and if i recall correctly pouring it over fresh ice dilutes it more.
Great book. I never knew I could read a whole ten pages on just ice and want to keep reading.
Is that true? With proper dilution/stirring, the drink would be below freezing and so pouring over a fresh piece of ice vs a new piece of ice would only result in a difference if the temperature of the fresh ice is below freezing, right? If the ice is at freezing, you'd get the same dilution whether using fresh or stirred ice.
The temperature of fresh ice is way below zero
Well that totally depends on where it is kept. My understanding is unless it's straight from the freezer, at most bars the ice is at 0C or very close. Further, even if it isn't the chilling effect before ice begins dilution is minimal. http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=4585.html
Large cubes also cool less efficiently. This means in a rocks glass they dilute less, but also that if you stirred with them, your drink wouldn't get as cold, or you'd have to stir it longer
Thank you!
A mixing glass is also useful when you are pouring your drink into a glass without ice, like you typically do with a martini
sometimes you're making more than one of the same cocktail