The last thing you want to do while hosting a party is have to pop in and out of the room to play bartender. Instead of spilling tequila shots all over an outfit and making a mess of the home bar, batch cocktails to help you be the host with the most. Batching a drink is simply preparing a group of drinks for a crowd by combining the usual ingredients into a pitcher or bowl; it’s a great way to keep the drinks flowing at a party without having to bust out the shaker.
Even if you’re well-versed in the art of cocktail batching, there is one critical step you might have missed: dilution. When preparing a single cocktail, it’s common to shake the ingredients with some ice before pouring it into a glass. This makes the drink cold, helps the ingredients fuse together faster, and has the lesser-known benefit of diluting the cocktail to keep the ingredients from tasting too strong. It cuts the tartness of cranberry juice, for example, and takes the sharp bite out of vodka. You don’t use a shaker when batching drinks because you can’t make many cocktails in a shaker at once, but that doesn’t mean you should sacrifice the effects. Just find another way to dilute, which in this instance means manually adding water to your recipe.
How to properly dilute a batch cocktail
While the exact amount of water you need to dilute a batch cocktail depends on the volume you’re producing, there are some general guidelines. If you’re making it ahead or won’t be adding ice later, add 20% water to the volume of your batch cocktail. If you want to serve immediately, make it 15% water instead and add 1 cup of ice for every 10 servings. If the cocktail doesn’t traditionally come with ice, don’t add any — which can ruin the aesthetic as well as the flavor — and stick to 20% water. This might sound like a lot of dilution, but it’s the ideal amount of water you need to turn a hyper-concentrated and intense cocktail into a balanced one without a shaker.
But dilution isn’t the only thing lost with batch cocktails; chill is too. Luckily, replacing this benefit is easy: Just stick the batched cocktails in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Keep these factors in mind when batching cocktails so you can enjoy a perfectly stiff Sazerac or delicious Italian cocktail yourself while still having fun at your own party.
