I’ve seen this around, but never in an instructional format:
Interesting. Note she talks about “Bruising the Gin”, I first only heard this term in James Bond novels, and like .32 ACP having great stopping power (and note in the 1950s 007 was likely using ball ammo in his PPK) I assumed it was just prosaic bullshit.
Nope, “Bruising” in bartending terms is the little chunks of ice that float on the surface of a shaken cocktail. Many bartenders these days will shake ANYTHING that is strained into a cocktail glass, simply because it gets the drink REALLY cold (I might argue colder than stirring) and it gets it there fast. So why spend a minuet stirring a cocktail, when shaking it briskly for 30 seconds will get a colder drink?
Bruising! If you don’t have REALLY good ice, that would be BIG, COLD, and SOLID chunks of the stuff.
A good video on Ice is here:
Also the Mai Tai is a REALLY good drink. If you’re like me and not the biggest fan of super sweet drinks, give it a try, it’s sweet, but surprisingly balanced.
Also interesting is I found a video of Robert making a Mai Tai several years ago, and he breaks his own rules:
We all learn and grow!
But yeah, we were talking about bruised gin. If you use standard bar ice (which is machine ice) you shake a drink hard, and you’ll have tiny chunks of ice floating in your drink. These suck because they’re sharp and don’t have any flavor, so they really mess up your cocktail experience.
If you use GOOD ice you can shake the life out of your drink, and probably not get real bruising. You’ll still get some aeration and some foaming if there is any sugar in the drink.
I imagine the same would happen with this cocktail. aeration makes the drink have a fuller, I describe it as velvety feel. It’s nice in some drinks, but frankly I prefer my Negroni very smooth that you get from stirring it.
Interesting technique, to put it mildly… But scotch is MUCH simpler… One cube, 1 finger of scotch, serve… 🙂
You know me, when it comes to Single Malt I tend to forgo the ice. For blends I’ll drop in a cube in the warmer months.
Still It’s kinda fun doing this stuff.
Regarding 007’s stopping power, my vague memories of what he was carrying before the .32 PPK was something in .22lr for concealability and relative silenceability.
Compared to .22, .32ACP probably does have great stopping power.
.25 Beretta, to be specific, and at the time Flemming knew nothing about guns. Had a Scottish firearms enthusiast (Named Boothroyd, which became the name of the firarms Quartermaster in the books, and Q in the movies) straightened him out.
Huh, I’ve heard of bruising the gin but never knew what it meant until now. Interesting.
Don’t most minuets last longer than a minute? (In your question about how long it takes to get cold when shaking vs. stirring)
Glad I could help.