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The bar's hard stuff: drinks being worked on, the ones worth learning, and the techniques with their numbers.

The hard stuff

What the most inventive bars do, and how — open one, then make your version of it, version by version.

Superbueno, New YorkCarbonated, in a highballVodka y SodaA vodka soda with everything done to it: chilli-infused vodka, clarified guava, its own acids, force-carbonated, a guava-salt rim.No spec publishedMake the first version →Double Chicken Please, New YorkShaken, served upCold PizzaA slice of pizza as a sour: tequila with Parmigiano and burnt toast, tomato, basil, honey and egg white.No spec publishedMake the first version →Double Chicken Please, New YorkShaken, served upJapanese Cold NoodleA piña colada rethought as a bowl of cold sesame noodles: rum, pineapple, cucumber, coconut, lime and sesame oil.No spec publishedMake the first version →CubaShaken, served upDaiquiriWhite rum, lime and sugar, shaken hard: the benchmark sour, and the drink a bartender is most often judged by.15.0% abv8.9g sugar0.85% acidMake the first version →FlorenceStirred, over iceNegroniGin, Campari and sweet vermouth in equal parts, stirred: bitter, sweet and strong at once.19.8% abv9.9g sugar0.12% acidMake the first version →New York and San Francisco, by competing claimsStirred, over iceMartiniGin and dry vermouth, stirred until very cold: the drink where dilution and temperature are most of the recipe.26.3% abv0.4g sugar0.07% acidMake the first version →

Being worked on

v5Rosa Ibarra · 4 days agoCorn sour, charred cob syrupBourbon · blanco tequila · lemon juice · charred corn syrup · egg whites15ml tequila, bourbon down to 45“Smoke and corn. Keep it.”v3Kenji Hara · 6 days agoMilk punch, with hojichaMezcal · pineapple juice · lime juice · simple syrup · hojicha +1Rested 3 hours“Clear. Rosa's rest was right; a little more is better.”v4Rosa Ibarra · 8 days agoFat-washed old fashioned, brown butterBrown butter-washed bourbon · maple syrup · angostura bitters · orange bittersA dash of orange bitters“That's the one.”v1You · not started yetYour dish goes hereThe one you cook again and againEvery version kept, with what you changed and what it taught you.

Made their own

Milk punch, with hojicha
Kenji Hara · v3
Mezcal · pineapple juice · lime juice · simple syrup · hojicha · whole milk
Tastes sharp and sweet
↳ made their own from Rosa Ibarra's v6
v3 · Rested 3 hours
“Clear. Rosa's rest was right; a little more is better.”

The benchmarks — measured the same way as yours

Daiquiri15.0% abv8.9 g sugar0.85% acid60ml white rum · 22.5ml lime juice · 22.5ml simple syrupshaken, after the iceNegroni19.8% abv9.9 g sugar0.12% acid30ml london dry gin · 30ml campari · 30ml sweet vermouthstirred, after the iceMartini26.3% abv0.4 g sugar0.07% acid60ml london dry gin · 15ml dry vermouth · 1 dash orange bittersstirred, after the ice

Techniques, with their numbers

Agar clarification

Clear juice in an hour, with no centrifuge: a weak agar gel traps the haze and lets the juice drain out.

  • 0.2% agar by weight — 2 g per kg of liquid
  • About 70% comes back clear
How
  1. Boil the agar in part of the liquid for a couple of minutes.
  2. Whisk in the rest, cold, keeping the mix above about 35 °C so it doesn't set early.
  3. Chill in an ice bath until set, then whisk the gel into loose curds.
  4. Drain through cheesecloth, squeezing gently — hard squeezing brings the haze back. Coffee-filter if it needs it.
  5. For lime and other juices that heat spoils, hydrate the agar in water instead — 1 g in 125 g water, then 375 g of juice — and allow for the quarter it dilutes.

Dave Arnold, Cooking Issues

Gelatine freeze-thaw

The slow, gentle clarifier: a gelatine set, frozen and thawed over cloth lets clear liquid drip out and holds everything else.

  • About 0.5% gelatine — 5 g per kg
  • A day or two to thaw, at 0–1 °C
How
  1. Hydrate the gelatine, dissolve it in the warmed liquid and let it set.
  2. Freeze solid.
  3. Thaw over cheesecloth in the fridge; pool everything that drips — the first of it is the richest.
  4. Spirits too strong to freeze won't work this way; agar can be freeze-thawed at room temperature instead.

Dave Arnold, Cooking Issues

Milk-washing

A punch made clear, silky and stable for weeks: the milk's curds pull out tannin and haze as they form.

  • About 4 parts punch to 1 part whole milk — some go to 5 : 1
  • Rest 10 minutes to overnight
How
  1. Pour the punch slowly into the milk — not the milk into the punch — so the milk's acidity drops gradually and it curdles evenly.
  2. Leave it to rest.
  3. Strain through a coffee filter, pouring the first cloudy run back through the bed of curds until it runs clear.

Camper English and Dan Souza, America's Test Kitchen

Fat-washing

A fat's flavour carried into a spirit, without the fat: bacon, brown butter, sesame, coconut.

  • PDT's: 45 ml melted bacon fat to a 750 ml bottle of bourbon
  • 4 hours at room temperature, 2 in the freezer
How
  1. Stir the melted fat into the spirit and leave it, shaking now and then.
  2. Freeze until the fat sets in a layer.
  3. Lift the fat off and fine-strain the spirit through cheesecloth or a cloth.

PDT's Benton's Old Fashioned, as published by Punch

Acid-adjusting

A gentler juice brought to lime strength — orange that can stand in for lime in a sour, or grapefruit that behaves like lemon.

  • Lime is about 6% acid, roughly 4% citric and 2% malic
  • Orange to lime strength: 32 g citric + 20 g malic per litre
  • Orange to lemon strength: 52 g citric per litre
How
  1. Weigh the juice.
  2. Stir the acids in until fully dissolved.
  3. Taste beside fresh lime — and use it the same day.

Dave Arnold's figures, via Modernist Pantry and Punch

Super juice

Ten times the citrus from the same limes: the peel's oils and the acid it lacks, made into a juice that keeps.

  • About 100 g lime peel — around 8 limes
  • 44 g citric + 8 g malic acid
  • 1 litre water
  • Keeps 1–2 weeks in the fridge
How
  1. Toss the peels in the acids and leave 45–60 minutes, until they've given up their oil.
  2. Add the water and blend.
  3. Add the juice of the peeled limes and fine-strain.
  4. Published versions vary — some use more malic or more water — so taste it against fresh.

Nickle Morris, Expo, Louisville

Rapid infusion

An infusion in a minute instead of a week: pressure drives the spirit into the solids, and venting pulls the flavour back out.

  • One 8 g N2O charge in a 1 litre whipper
  • About a minute — 30 seconds is weak, 2–3 minutes turns bitter
How
  1. Put the spirit and solids in the whipper, both at room temperature.
  2. Charge it, swirl for 30 seconds, then let it stand for 30.
  3. Vent fast — that's what does the work — open, and strain.

Dave Arnold, Cooking Issues

Dilution and cold

Most of what a shaken or stirred drink becomes is water and temperature — measurable before it's made.

  • A shaken daiquiri picks up about half again in water, ending near 15% abv
  • Shaking reaches its balance in 12–15 seconds
  • Shaken drinks are best around −5 to −10 °C; stirred, −0.5 to −7 °C
How
  1. Shake hard for 12–15 seconds — longer barely changes it.
  2. Stir until the glass is frosted and the drink is silky, not thin.
  3. For a freezer drink, measure the water in ahead: it's the dilution stirring would have given.

Dave Arnold, Cooking Issues and Liquid Intelligence — the dilution in “In the glass” follows his equations

The bar's measures

What a dash, a barspoon and a pour of syrup actually hold.

  • A dash: just under 1 ml — 0.92 ml in the old books; Japanese dasher bottles give far less
  • A barspoon: nominally 5 ml, though spoons vary
  • 1:1 syrup by weight: about 0.62 g of sugar per ml
How
  1. Weigh syrups rather than pour them, when it matters.
  2. Use the same dasher bottle every time — dashes aren't standard.

The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, and measured dashes

The bar's shelves, at the market

22Spiritsaquavit · armagnac · baijiu · blanco tequila · bourbon · cachaça12Vermouth and sherryamontillado · blanc vermouth · dry vermouth · fino sherry · madeira · manzanilla18Liqueurs and bittersabsinthe · allspice dram · amaro · angostura bitters · aperol · bénédictine29Acids and agentsagar · calcium chloride · calcium lactate · charred corn syrup · citric acid · gelatine

Where it's done

East Village, New York
Superbueno, opened in 2023 by Ignacio "Nacho" Jiménez and Greg Boehm, a Mexican-American bar ranked 12th in the world in 2025. A few blocks away, PDT, where Don Lee washed bourbon with bacon fat — and Booker and Dax, Dave Arnold's lab of a bar, from 2012 to 2016.
Lower East Side, New York
Double Chicken Please, opened in 2020 by GN Chan and Faye Chen after years as a pop-up in a camper van, and second in the world in 2023. Its back room, the Coop, lists its drinks like a menu of dishes.
Mexico City
Handshake Speakeasy, whose own lab clarifies juices and infuses cordials, named the world's best bar in 2024 — the first in Mexico. Its clarified mezcal milk punch is one of its signatures.
Havana
Where the daiquiri, named after a beach and mining town near Santiago de Cuba, became famous — at El Floridita it was a house speciality, frozen as often as shaken.
Florence
The negroni's home town, by the usual story — the Americano made stronger with gin.
Barcelona
Sips, opened in 2021 by Simone Caporale and Marc Álvarez and the world's best bar in 2023. There are no bar seats: drinks are made at a central island and brought to the tables.
London
Ryan Chetiyawardana's Lyaness, which builds its menu ingredient first, and Tayēr + Elementary, whose One Sip Martini is pre-batched and kept in the freezer.

Everything cooked here

The cocktail bar · 2 versions hereClarified milk punchTastes sharp and sweet
v6Rosa Ibarra · v6↳ 1 cook has made it their ownLime juice, not lemon juice · With mezcalv6 · Rested 2 hours instead of 1v3Kenji Hara · v3↳ from Rosa Ibarra's v6Lime juice, not lemon juice · With mezcalv3 · Rested 3 hours
The cocktail bar · 1 version hereRoasted Corn Sour
v5Rosa Ibarra · v5v5 · 15ml tequila, bourbon down to 45
The cocktail bar · 1 version hereBenton's Old FashionedTastes bitter and sweetish
v4Rosa Ibarra · v4With brown butter-washed bourbon · With orange bitterv4 · A dash of orange bitters

Cooks

RIRosa Ibarra · Mexico City15 attempts across 3 dishes · deepest: Clarified milk punch, mezcal and pineapple v6Their cookbook →KHKenji Hara · Osaka14 attempts across 3 dishes · deepest: Sourdough, 100% rye v8Their cookbook →AEAna Etxarri · Bilbao12 attempts across 2 dishes · deepest: Chawanmushi v8Their cookbook →ISIbu Sari · Bukittinggi12 attempts across 2 dishes · deepest: Beef rendang v8Their cookbook →TATolu Adeyemi · Lagos11 attempts across 3 dishes · deepest: Jollof, party style v5Their cookbook →IFIda Fenwick · London6 attempts across 1 dish · deepest: Oak-smoked butter v6Their cookbook →MKMira Kowalski · Leeds5 attempts across 1 dish · deepest: Pierogi ruskie v5Their cookbook →DDaryl3 attempts across 3 dishes · deepest: Roast Beef Sammich v1Their cookbook →
That's everything for that word. The index stops when it runs out.