Nadia George
July 19, 2024
The craft of mixing drinks is about getting your measurements accurate so you can make drinks which bring out the flavours of every ingredient to arrive at a perfectly balanced concoction.
In regions which follow the metric system, the general rule of thumb is to measure alcohol in millilitres or ml.
The International Bartenders Association too uses the metric system for all their official recipes so mls or centilitres (cl) are used to quantify shots or single and double pours. This means, one shot or a single pour is equivalent to 25 ml or 2.5 cl whereas a double pour qualifies as 50 ml or 5 cl.
As cocktails originated in America, the imperial system was carried forward here in bartending craft and knowing the essential conversion of 1 ounce (oz) as 29.57 ml or 2.9 cl goes a long way in perfecting your cocktail recipes.
And then there are your more freewheeling measures like a splash of whisky and a dash of cordial or a bar spoon full of lime juice which are metrics that define the flavour highlights of your cocktail.
However, these are not as random and you might think and cocktail experts have set some measuring standards for them too. A splash can be 5.9 ml, whereas a dash is one shake of a bitter bottle and one bar spoon equals 4.9 ml of booze.