Ready or not, holiday season is almost here! Whether you love to host or are a professional guest, knowing your way around the bar is key. Use this guide to brush up on your bar vocab so you can order the perfect dirty martini every time.
Apéritif: A dry alcoholic beverage such as Campari, Lillet, or Dubonnet served before a meal, ordered immediately upon seating.
Call: A high-quality, popular name brand of spirits (usually midpriced) that guests will ask for by name.
Cocktail: A spirit or liquor combined with some other beverage and mixed together. All cocktails have specific names and a primary spirit/liquor (martini, Manhattan, mojito), although guests may request variations. Most have a particular glass in which they are served, and some also require a garnish. Also called a “mixed drink.”
Cordial: see liqueur
Digestif: An alcoholic beverage served after a meal.
Dirty: Used to describe a martini served with an olive and olive brine.
Dry: The opposite of sweet, in context of wine or a cocktail.
Float: Technique of layering an ingredient at the top of a mixed drink.
Liquor: Distilled alcoholic beverage; also called “spirit.”
Liqueur: Flavored, sweetened alcoholic beverage that may also have been mixed with milk or cream. Also called a “cordial.”
Mixed drink: see cocktail
Muddle: To combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker or glass and use a tool to pound or crush them. This releases flavor for a cocktail that is built over the muddled ingredients.
Neat: A liquor poured from the bottle into a glass and served at room temperature, without ice and with nothing else added. Whiskey is commonly served neat (usually in an old-fashioned or rocks glass), and guests may request other spirits this way, such as an unmixed shot.
On the rocks: A spirit served over ice in an old-fashioned (or rocks) glass. If the drink is shaken (as are most fruit juice–based cocktails and cream-based spirits), repour the shaken cocktail into a new glass with fresh ice, instead of using the shaken ice, which will be rounded and partially melted from shaking.
Premium: The highest-quality brand of spirits and the most expensive. Also called “top shelf.”
Proof: A reference to the amount of alcohol by weight in spirits; the proof is twice the percent of alcohol by weight (100 proof means 50 percent alcohol by weight).
Rim: the addition of a flavor to the rim of a cocktail glass. Can be as simple as the oils from an orange peel or salt or sugar on a mixed drink.
Short: A cocktail served in an old-fashioned or rocks glass, with a smaller amount of mixer.
Soda: Carbonated water.
Spirit: see liquor
Straight up: A spirit or mixed drink served chilled but without ice. To chill the drink, place the contents in a cocktail shaker with ice cubes, stir or shake, and then strain the drink into stemmed glassware, making sure to leave the ice behind. The vodka martini is the most popular drink served straight up, and guests may request gin martinis and Manhattans this way, as well.
Tall: A cocktail served in a highball or Collins glass, with a larger amount of mixer.
Tonic: Carbonated water with quinine and sugar.
Top shelf: see premium
Twist: A piece of citrus peel added as a garnish to a cocktail. The twist should not include the pith.
Up: see straight up
Well: The lowest-priced house brand of spirits.