Fancy tips to give your cocktails the wow factor

If you’ve been dabbling in mixology for a while, but you’re starting to feel like there must be more to it than carefully combining three or four ingredients in a shaker before straining into a glass, then you might be ready for some more sophisticated drink-mixing. You can get quite fancy with your cocktail creations. Here are a few tricks that will make cocktails more exciting for you and blow the minds of anyone who drinks them. But beware – these are not for the lazy bartender!

Bring on the fat!

Ever heard of fat-washing? This is a technique that professional mixologists use to give their drinks a bolder flavour. Fat-washing is where you melt a fat, like coconut oil or peanut butter. You then combine the liquid with a spirit of your choice and freeze the mixture. When you’re ready to use it, defrost and strain it into your drink to create some incredible cocktail combinations.

Make your cocktails clear

Got a cloudy mixture? Or perhaps you want to fool people into thinking your cocktail is devoid of flavour (as if!). Clarification is a fun technique that will have people talking about your mixology skills for years. To do this, you can add agar agar and then strain the cocktail. You can also curdle your drink with milk and filter the mixture. The results are fascinating!

Replace the water

The make-up of any spirit is actually quite complicated, but they all have quite a lot of water in them. If you freeze alcohol, you can easily separate and remove the water. You can then replace it with fruit juice, or pretty much any other liquid, creating your own flavoured creations that taste fantastic in cocktails.

Ferment your drinks

Fermenting cocktails might be the most fun you ever have as a mixologist! All you need is some wine yeast and an experimental attitude and you can transform cocktails into a whole new drink! Simply add the yeast to teas, juices, cherries or fizzy drinks and see what happens. You might decide you like these ingredients as they are, or you might feel inspired to create a new cocktail!

Once you’ve mastered a basic G&T, moved on from Woo Woos and poured more Long Island Ice Teas than you care to remember, these top tricks will take your cocktail game to another level. Be prepared to amaze anyone who enjoys your cocktails!