Our Philosophy

Our target audience

A Perfect Drink is for readers who:

• Entertain at home about once a week

• Have 2-3 hours a week to put into maintaining a home bar outside of entertaining

• Prefer serving a highly-considered version of a classic cocktail to guests rather than inventing their own recipes or chasing the latest fashions among the mixerati. We indulge in the last two ourselves, but feel it best to focus this resource undilutedly on the first.

Thus, we observe the principles laid out below.

Accessibility through standard reference ingredients

As much as possible, we attempt to tune our recipes to standard reference ingredients. Our goal is to minimize the number of different bottles required to make our recipes, to make ingredient retrieval and bar re-stocking as easy as possible.

We select the highest-quality product in each category which is:

• Regularly available at physical retail in the 20 largest cities in the U.S.

• Sold at a price reflective of quality

• Reasonably expected to remain on the market for the next 5 years (thus, newer products are permissible from larger, more established manufacturers)

We do our best to draw categories as widely as possible, again to minimize the total number of ingredients our readers must stock. In some cases, subdividing a traditional top-level category into two standard reference ingredients is unavoidable; for example, London Dry and botanical gins are not interchangeable, and optimal versions of different classic cocktails call for each.

We avoid making our standard reference version of an ingredient one that requires complex, labor-intensive, or non-standard preparations, unless said preparations are essential to executing the classical concept of a drink. Our ideal is: off the shelf, then into the mixing glass or shaker. We believe there is a place in the cocktail world, even when perfecting the classics, for infusions, dry ice, and flame, but we believe you, our reader, would rather outsource those to professional bartenders with dedicated space and equipment.

We especially try to minimize the number of standard reference ingredients which are non-shelf-stable (e.g., citruses, aromatized wines), to reduce the frequency with which readers need to re-stock.

Accessibility through constrained barware

We attempt to minimize the number of items readers have to have in their home bar by avoiding complex or nonstandard preparations for drinks. If the classical concept of a drink has multiple preparation options calling for different sizes, costs, and operating complexity of barware, we will tune our version for the least-complex one (e.g., preferring shaking to blenders when either is applicable).

We do make one concession to barware complexity, because it more than repays itself in preparation simplicity: we assume readers will acquire a jigger which can measure an amount as small as 1/24 oz, such as the Simon Difford-designed Easy Jigger. Having such an item removes the necessity of either estimating small measurements unreliably, or of having to handle measuring spoons while mixing. A graduated cylinder from a scientific supply company can suffice if readers wish to do their own conversions.

Our target volume for recipes is based on the smallest commercially-available version of the called-for glassware type. We assume our guests are constrained on the amount of alcohol they wish to consume during an event, and try to ensure they can try as many different drinks as possible if they wish.

Editorial independence

Manufacturers are advised that while we may love your products, we do not accept gifts, and we do not use affiliate links.