The pour

Consistency is what separates a bar from guesswork. A guest who liked a drink last week is ordering the same drink, and the only way to give them one is to measure.

A jigger is a two-sided measure. New Zealand pours in millilitres, and the pairs worth owning are 30/15 and 60/30. Between them they cover almost every spec in this book.

Fill to the brim, not to somewhere near it. A jigger measured by eye at nine-tenths full isn't a measure, and the error compounds across four ingredients.

Five things matter:

• The right glass, cool and dry. Fill to the top two-thirds and hand it over by the base or stem.
• Enough good ice. Fill the glass. See the previous chapter.
• An accurate pour. Jigger, and pour in front of the guest with the label facing them.
• Good, cold mixers. A warm tonic ruins a good gin and there's nothing to be done about it afterwards.
• A fresh garnish, cut that shift.

None of the five is difficult. Doing all five for every drink on a busy night is.