Cocktail Muddler
I recently had a birthday and I was very happy to unwrap my gift from my family and find that they got me a cocktail muddler. Hey, times are tough and not everyone gets a new iPad or a vacation for their birthday and besides I’m very happy with it. Since I’m really enjoying making cocktails lately and always like trying new things, the muddler was definitely something on my wishlist.
What is a muddler you ask? Well, it’s basically a stick or maybe it’s more like a mortel and pestle (just the pestle part) for cocktails. You place some ingredients in a cocktail shaker, usually it’s fruit or something that isn’t liquid and then you squish it up with the muddler. If you’ve ever read a drink recipe that says something like, muddle a piece of ginger and a lime in a cocktail shaker, now you know what it means. They say that muddling releases the natural flavors of the ingredients and yes is probably true but really what’s going on here is that you’re squishing the stuff up.
If you’ve ever had a fresh mojito, the bartender probably used a muddler. With a mojito, there’s mint leaves and limes and maybe sugar that get muddled before the ice and rum are added. I hear that adding bitters to mojitos now is the trendy thing to do. I’ll have to try this out and report back here. I’ve planted tons of mint in the garden this spring. There should be lots of mojitos in my future.
Since I just got the muddler, I haven’t had much time to add a bunch of muddled cocktail recipes to this site. But I plan on updating this page with links to muddled cocktail recipes after I do some very important “research” so please check back every once in a while.