Congratulations to you on taking your first steps towards DIY cocktails! You’ve memorized the recipes, you mumble them in your sleep. You‘ve become a mixologist, the bringer of fun at parties, yet something’s missing. Every drink you make ends up being topped by the same old garnish that the ones before you mention. You want to experiment, but don’t want the last step to bungle up all the hard work that went into creating your masterpiece. Worry not, here’s the last garnish handbook you’ll ever need.
Your garnish can serve one of many functions. It can either just be a purely aesthetic addition, like an umbrella on a Piña Colada. It can add to the flavor of your drink, like the Tajin rim on a Margarita. In some cases, the garnish can be cool enough to possess both form and function, as seen with the many citrus garnishes that you see on various cocktails.How about dissecting these garnishes a little and getting a bit familiar so the next time you get mixing, you guess less, and pour more?Also read: Which Bollywood Character Are You Based on Your Favorite Drinks?
Photo Credit: Pinterest / toriavey.comDid you know that lemons do not exist naturally? Lemons came to be as a result of crossbreeding bitter oranges with citrons. Before you ask, citrons are the predecessors of all citrus fruits (think Daddy Lemon). What we’re trying to say is, life didn’t give us lemons, we did!Thank the mixologists for giving these lemons some glorious purpose though. Here are some ways you can use, not just lemons, but other citrus fruits to zhuzh up your cocktails:
You can also use dehydrated slices if you want to reduce the sweetness and dilution to imbue your drinks with a more pronounced flavor.
Now, wedges don’t add as much flavor to your drink as slices do, but they could end up tilting your focus to do some shots, maybe? So that’s pretty neat.
You can extract the peel off your citrus fruit using various knives and peelers. It all depends on which one you’re more comfortable with.
The best way to imbue your drinks with the flavors from citrus peels is to run them on the rim of your glass after lightly bruising them. You can also lightly squeeze the peels to spray some of the oil from them onto the top of your drink.Remember that pool metaphor we used earlier? It works well in the case of using citrus peels too. Just as most people don’t get all the way down to their birthday suits before getting into a pool (we said most, exceptions can be, and are made), you don’t want to strip the fruit all the way. Use a light hand and avoid the white pith that is between the upper layer of the peel and the pulp of the fruit. The pith has the type of bitter taste that makes your teeth feel all weird and your drink will be worse for it.Also read: Best Cocktail Smoker Kits In India For The Home Mixologist
Photo Credit: PinterestMoving on from the sourpusses over on citrus-land, we cast a wider net over the fruit domain to meet the next type of garnish that you can use to turn your mixture of spirits and mixers into a full-fledged cocktail.Fruits can add flavor to your cocktails and a change of pace from just sipping. What makes adding fruit to your drink even better is that you get to say a scrumptious goodbye to your beverage in the form of a booze soaked, flavorful slice of fruit.Fruit garnishes can take many forms. We channel our best Bubba from Forrest Gump as we tell you that you can slice ‘em, wedge ‘em, skewer ‘em and let them float on your drank or perch ‘em on the rim of the glass. You can add them fresh, or dried. They can be big like fruit fans, or teeny tiny little cubes. You can use them big ol’ melons or them fancy little cherries.Truly, the world is not just your oyster, it’s your fruit salad too! You’re only limited by your creativity and the flavors you want to add to your cocktails.Also read: 7 Best Fruit Wine Brands To Buy In India
Whenever most people hear of herbs as an edible addition, people think of spices added to sauces and meals. Their first thought doesn’t go to cocktails. Well, a lot of herbs not only go into making the spirits that create your cocktails, they also work great as toppings to the cocktails containing these spirits.Some of the most commonly used herbs are mint, cilantro, basil, and dill, but the list is not exclusive. To ensure that these leaves are able to leave an impact on your drink, it is advised to mildly muddle, bruise, crush, or damage them in some way. This allows the leaves to ooze their flavory goodness into your cocktails.Damn! All this talk and leaves and crushing has us thinking of some other ways to get unsobered.Also read: Here Is The World’s First Jackfruit-Flavoured VodkaHerbs are typically used in cocktails that use spirits with mild or no additional flavor notes, like vodka. However, it is strongly recommended that you experiment with combinations. Go full “mad scientist” with beakers, flasks, and an entire chemistry set. That is how you will find your style and really understand the flavor combinations that work and the ones that don’t.
Photo Credit: Pinterest / society19.comBefore we get into this style of garnishing your cocktail, we must warn you - messing up what you type when looking for “rim” and “glasses” can lead to some dubious search history!Internet safety tips aside, rim garnishes can be some of the most interesting ways to round off a cocktail. You can go full Professor Utonium as you experiment with sugar, spice and everything nice. This style of garnishing provides an interesting spectrum to play with as you can use the old reliables like salt and sugar, as well as some literally spicy options like Tajin and ground peppers!Rim garnishes obviously add flavor to your drinks and they also introduce an interesting crunchy texture to your sips. (Just make sure to not get carried away and bite into your glass.)To add a rim garnish to your cocktail, lightly dampen the edge of the glass you will serve your cocktail in with water or a cut lemon. Next, dip and roll the dampened edge of your glass in a plate that has the rim garnish of your choice. You can get really creative and segment the garnish that you add to your cocktail, turning one glass into a vessel for multiple drinks.Also read: Best Honey Cocktails That You Can Make At Home!
Although garnishes are something that rest on top of your cocktails, they can help add a whole lot of depth to them. A good garnish can really work magic and set your drink apart by adding new flavors, mouth feel and visuals to it.Don’t be afraid to experiment with your garnish options and go against the grain. You might just be a few experiments away from finding your Rachmaninoff's Third!
What Garnish Goes With What Cocktail?Limes, lemons, and other citrus fruits are the most commonly used garnishes for most cocktails. However, herbs, spices, fruits, and even meats have been successfully used to top drinks. So, there’s no one good answer, except “Experiment and find out!”What Are 5 Popular Garnishes?Based solely on how commonly they are used, the 5 most popular cocktail garnishes are:
What Are The Basic Garnishes For Cocktails?Some of the more basic ingredients that can be used to garnish your cocktails are:
How To Choose A Cocktail Garnish?You can be really picky and a purist about choosing the garnishes for your cocktail and sticking with what has been proven to work well, or you can get experimental and try combinations that are completely new and might even ruffle some feathers. The key thing to remember is that a good garnish is meant to elevate your cocktail’s flavor as well as its visual appeal. So it might help to use fresh or high quality ingredients and make sure that there are little to no blemishes or visual imperfections in your garnishes.Does Every Cocktail Need A Garnish?While you can always stick to the basics and make sure that the ingredients of the cocktail alone are enough. If you are making a drink that sits with its consumer for a while though, adding some garnish can provide the drinker (yourself or another) a better, well-rounded experience.How To Make A Cocktail Look Fancy?A cocktail can be made visually appealing in a lot of ways. You can use food coloring, ingredients with natural colors that affect the visuals of the final drink, or garnishes that add visual aspects to the drink beyond the liquids in the glass.How To Prep Cocktail Garnishes?While a lot of garnishes come pre-cut and already prepared these days, for a truly DIY experience, it is best to handle the garnish yourself. A little prep goes a long way and can really lead to a tailor made drinking experience. A few things you need to do to prepare your garnish are:
