How to Batch Cocktails for a Party
Batching is not a compromise. A pre-batched, pre-diluted, properly chilled drink is often better than the same drink made to order by a host who is also answering the door, because the dilution is exact and the drink is colder. The rules are simple, and one of them is about citrus.
The short answer
Multiply the recipe by the number of servings. Add water equal to 20 per cent of the total for a stirred drink and 25 per cent for a shaken one, because there will be no ice doing that job. Bottle it, chill it in the fridge for at least four hours, and pour into chilled glasses. Add citrus within a few hours of serving, and anything fizzy only in the glass.
The arithmetic, once
Take a Negroni: one ounce each of gin, Campari and sweet vermouth, three ounces total, stirred. For twelve drinks that is 12 oz of each, 36 oz in all. Add 20 per cent water, which is about 7 oz, for 43 oz of finished batch. That fills a 1.3 litre bottle and pours twelve drinks of roughly 3.6 oz each, which is what a stirred Negroni measures after dilution.
A useful constant: a 750 ml bottle is 25.4 oz, so it yields about twelve drinks at two ounces of spirit each. Two bottles of gin and you are catering a party.
Weigh rather than measure if you can. A kitchen scale is faster than thirty jiggers and more accurate with syrups, which are denser than water; see how to measure a cocktail.
Why you add water
A drink made to order gets its water from the melting ice, a fifth of the volume stirred and a quarter shaken. A batch poured over fresh ice in a cold glass barely melts any, so without added water it arrives tight, hot and about 20 per cent too strong. Adding the water in advance also lets the batch chill to a lower temperature than a watery one would, because you can keep it in the freezer.
A batch at 24 per cent alcohol or more will not freeze solid at domestic freezer temperatures, which makes a freezer-batched Martini one of the best drinks you can serve: pre-diluted, poured at minus eighteen degrees, no ice, no stirring, no shaker. For a full explanation of what the water is doing, see ice and dilution.
Citrus, and the clock
Fresh lemon and lime juice are at their best within a few hours of squeezing and taste noticeably duller the next day: lime goes first, turning flat and faintly bitter within about eight hours, and lemon holds a little longer. Orange and grapefruit keep better.
So for a sour batch, do it in two parts. Mix the spirits, liqueurs, syrups and water a day or more ahead and refrigerate. Squeeze the citrus on the day, add it to the batch up to four hours before serving, and keep the whole thing cold. For a very large party, keep the juice separate and combine in jugs as you go.
A Margarita, a Daiquiri and a Whiskey Sour all batch well this way. Egg white does not batch; make those to order.
What to add at the last moment
Anything carbonated. Soda, tonic, prosecco, Champagne, ginger beer. Pour the batch over ice to about two-thirds and top in the glass, or the whole bottle goes flat. That covers the Collinses, the spritzes and a French 75.
Egg, cream and dairy. Make to order, or batch the non-dairy part and shake the cream in per drink.
Garnishes and bitters on top. Bitters can go in the batch; a flamed peel or an expressed twist cannot, and it is worth doing per glass because the aroma is the first thing a guest meets. See how to garnish a cocktail.
Mint. Mint infuses fast and then turns dark and grassy. Muddle or add it per drink.
Keeping and serving
Bottle the batch in clean glass with a tight closure, label it, and keep it in the fridge or freezer. A spirit-only batch with no juice keeps for weeks refrigerated and does not spoil; it simply loses a little brightness. A batch with citrus is a one-day proposition. A punch with tea, sugar and citrus is traditionally made the day before and improves overnight, which is what a Fish House Punch or an eggnog wants.
At service, chill the glasses, pour over fresh ice if the drink takes ice, and put the bottle back in the cold between rounds. A punch bowl wants one large block of ice rather than cubes: less surface area, slower dilution over an evening.
Questions
How much water do I add to a batch? 20 per cent of the total volume for stirred drinks, 25 per cent for shaken ones.
How far ahead can I batch? Spirit-only, weeks in the fridge. With citrus, the same day. With egg or cream, to order.
Will a batch freeze? Not above about 24 per cent alcohol, which is where a pre-diluted Martini or Manhattan sits. A diluted sour will.
Do I still need ice in the glass? For drinks normally served on ice, yes, fresh ice. For drinks served up, no: pour straight from the freezer.
How many drinks per bottle? About twelve, from a 750 ml bottle, at two ounces of spirit each.
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