When Making Cocktails, Start With the Cheapest Ingredients
As with everything, learning how to make great cocktails takes practice, and even the pros get it wrong from time to time. To avoid wasting high-value booze, bartender and all-round ethanol expert Jim Meehan creates his drinks from the cheapest ingredients.
Life is full of distractions, and if you get interrupted while mixing a drink, you could lose your place in the recipe. By adding cocktail ingredients from the least expensive (like syrups and juices) to the most expensive (trendy liqueurs), you reduce your chances of wasting good things.
Another good idea when mixing your drink is to add ice last, as you want to be ready to stir or shake the moment the frozen water enters your drink. I am very distracted and tend to wander in the middle of things, and adding ice last means I can walk away from the cocktail for a few minutes and not worry about it getting too thin. A watery drink is a useless drink, and a wasted drink is a sad thing.
Master Your Mixology Game | James Beard Foundation