Reddit reviews WMF Loft Boston Shaker

Not Cocktail of the Week #29: Cakeday Special – Home Bar Edition
It's been a little over half a year since I started writing this weekly "Not Cocktail of the Week" column, so for my reddit cakeday, which conveniently coincides with my birthday earlier this month, I thought I'd take an opportunity to do something different and share my home bar setup along with the new upgrades/acquisitions I got for my birthday.

My Bar
Everyone’s bar is individual and unique, a reflection of their personality, a testament to their tastes. My bar currently utilizes a built-in cabinet unit in our apartment, which worked out wonderfully, despite my initial hesitation, and ultimately gives me more room than I would’ve had in a prebuilt unit. My actual “bar top” is relatively small; I conduct almost all my work on a small hand towel to keep spills and splashes to a minimum, with the photos you see every week staged on the clean area to the right. I only keep the essentials in my actual work space, which is comprised of two pint glasses, a makeshift “Yarai” glass (one day I’ll be able to justify buying a real one), cocktail shaker tins, jiggers, recipe books for inspiration, and my personal notebook.
At eye level above my bar I keep the essential bitters (Angostura, Peychaud’s and orange) and a couple fancy boutique bitters that a friend brought me from Boston. Behind the bitters are small infusions and various homemade “brandied” cherries in small jam jars. My ice bucket and cocktail tray (gifts from the wedding registry) are kept in the center section of the cabinet, though I only find need of it for entertaining. Above all of this are most of my coupe glasses; we acquired a lot for our wedding (hooray for thrift stores) and ultimately ended up keeping a good majority of them. It’s surprisingly useful when entertaining to have a surplus of clean glasses because you don’t have to worry about running out or not being able to offer guests a fresh glass for a cocktail.
To the left of my workspace, I keep the large bottles of “well” spirits for general mixing purposes (bourbon and gin being my spirits of choice), a large bottle of vodka for infusions, and a Sodastream machine, which is used to make fresh soda water. Above these items reside the glassware I use a little less frequently such as Glencairn glasses for proper appreciation of Scotch, some small decanters for serving premixed cocktails while entertaining, Collins glasses, short stubby “Martini” glasses aka Cosmo glasses, and even more coupes glasses (we have a lot).
Underneath my workspace are all my spirits, which I keep in a closed cabinet to avoid any potential degradation from sunlight. From left to right my bottles are organized roughly in the following categories: Scotch, bourbon/rye, brandy/tequila, rum, gin, amaro/herbal liqueurs, sweet liqueurs, and wine. Keeping them in the dark can make it difficult to find bottles in the evening (I took these pictures in the middle of the day), so I have recently installed the first of my birthday presents, a couple motion sensing LED lights. Despite knowing the general location of each of my bottles, it is nice to have the visual aspect while reaching in to grab something.

Cocktail Shakers
Let’s now talk a little about an essential item in any bar, the cocktail shaker. Cocktail shakers come in two standard styles, known as the cobbler shaker and the Boston shaker. A cobbler shaker is a 3-piece affair, comprised of a large bottom tin, a lid with built in strainer, and a cap. The benefits of a cobbler shaker are the strainer is built in and it allows for the Japanese “hard shake” due to its relatively compact size. However its compactness is also its main drawback as you generally will only be able to properly prepare one cocktail at a time. A Boston shaker is what you will typically find at a bar and is comprised of 2 pieces, usually a heavy mixing glass (indistinguishable from a good pint glass) and a metal shaking tin. The cocktail is measured in the mixing glass, the shaking tin is then firmly applied to the top to seal it, and the cocktail is then strained from the shaking tin with the use of a Hawthorne strainer. The Boston shaker will generally have a much larger volume available for mixing, which is beneficial for both making multiple servings of a cocktail at once, and for better aeration while shaking. Some people can find it tricky to separate the two halves of a Boston shaker, but generally a solid slap with the palm of your hand on either side will do the trick.
I purchased my first real cocktail shaker about 3 years ago after experimenting with making cocktails with my dad’s kitschy firetruck set (cobbler shaker was the body, ladder were ice tongs, “hoses” were stirring rods, pail was “jigger”, etc.). I purchased this shaker after some research, feeling like a Boston shaker would be a good long term investment. In retrospect it seems expensive, but it did serve me honorably for the last few years. Some of you may have noticed that recently the very useful measuring glass (great quality since the paint markings have never chipped or worn away) developed a pretty significant crack and started chipping, which I solved by substituting with my favorite pint glass. Regardless, I figured my birthday would be a good opportunity to get a new shaker set and so I acquired the Koriko shaker tins from Cocktail Kingdom which are much cheaper, basically indestructible and beautiful to boot. I’m sure I will be using these for at least the next 3 years.

Jiggers
There are two camps in the cocktail world, those that free pour and those that use jiggers. As a home enthusiast, speed is not a concern, but accuracy and reproducibility are more important, so I fall firmly in the camp of those that use jiggers. For as long as I have been a cocktail enthusiast, I never actually got around to buying some real jiggers. A lot of the jiggers on Amazon, while cheap, their quality seems dubious (at least judging from the reviews). I’ve gotten used to using a 5 oz. measuring glass (surprisingly convenient for mixing multiple cocktails) and a 2 oz. measuring cup, which have really taken a beating over the years. So in addition to the new Koriko cocktail shaker, I also ordered the Cocktail Kingdom jiggers, trusting them to provide a quality product. The new jiggers seem quite nice with a good solid feeling to their construction and imprinted measurements that should never wear away.

Ice
In addition to a cocktail shaker and jiggers, ice is another essential component of making a cocktail (unless you exclusively drink toddies or something). It is important to use the best ice possible as the water component of a cocktail comprises anywhere from 20-33% of the final drink. Therefore in order to avoid any “off” flavors that may exist in your ice, start with filtered/purified water and keep your ice in a sealed container (where do you think all the liquid from freezer burn goes?). While almost any old fashioned ice cube tray will work to make solid cubes of ice, I got a red Tovolo ice cube tray for my birthday which matches my Tovolo KING cube tray. It doesn’t really perform any differently than the old ice cube tray I had (other than being a lot harder to get cubes out), but the perfect cubes do add some aesthetic appeal to drinks served long.

Other Tools
I picked up a couple tools that have been missing from my arsenal, a julep strainer and a channel knife. A julep strainer is traditionally used in conjunction with a Yarai glass to strain ice after mixing. Unfortunately my makeshift “Yarai” stand-in is a bit too wide to properly use the julep strainer I got, so I guess I will just have to wait until I can buy a Yarai glass from Cocktail Kingdom. A channel knife is necessary to make the thin and pretty spiral twists for garnishing. I’ve not been able to make those before, so hopefully you’ll be seeing those in NCotW in the future. I also included a picture of the tools that I regularly use and keep close at hand in my bar. From left to right they are: cocktail picks, bottle opener, citrus reamer, new channel knife, fine strainer, paring knife, muddler, and bar spoon. The one important thing of note is to always buy unfinished wood products for things like a citrus reamer or muddler. Varnished/finished wood is beautiful, but with use the varnish/stain will slowly chip/fade away into your cocktails.

Reading
Finally, a brief note about the books I have been reading. I received a copy of Tony Coligniaro’s new book The Cocktail Lab, which is a beautiful book suitable for the coffee table and filled with inspirational modern cocktails. However, between currently reading David Embury's "The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" and David Wondrich's "Imbibe!", I haven't had much opportunity to dig into it and try any of his drinks. I’ve only heard good things about the book, so I look forward to reading through it and learning from him.

Cheers!
Hopefully you’re not all too disappointed to not be reading about a proper cocktail this week, I’ll be back next week with a double header to make up for this deficit. I’d love to hear about your home bar setups, preferred bar tools, or anything you think I may have missed. Writing this week’s column was a lot harder than expected, as it fell outside of my usual format. In any case, thanks to all for your continued support of this feature, and until next week, cheers!

I prefer the Boston style shakers personally. They're simple and easy and bulletproof. I have this one, though I didn't pay nearly the price that they want for it at amazon.

For new items, I have been very happy with my set though appearance was pretty important to me so they cost more than other options. I have had the below trio for a little over 4 years. WMF Boston Shaker, their measurer and their new strainer (I have a previous version that is curvier). Everything has held up well, the ink on the glass has held up through occasional machine washings, the styling is beautiful, the metal pieces get dropped all the time and nothing has dented or scratched.

One thing to remember, the jigger is not standard size since it is from Germany. This never bothers me and it is so pretty and easy to clean that I think it is worth the tradeoff.