batching is the art of preparing multiple servings of a mixed drinks in advance of when it is to be served. Whether the batch is prepared to increase speed of service or because the drink is to be served in a situation that makes building drinks from scratch difficult—or, as when large crowds must be accommodated, both—it requires taking the same precision and care used in measuring out the ingredients for one perfectly crafted cocktail for one guest and multiplying that service by the hundreds and sometimes the thousands. Done properly, it is a technique that bartenders can use to ensure efficient and consistent drink service to their guests.
punch. In the nineteenth century, bars used to sell bottled cocktails, which are of course batched drinks. See bottled cocktails. Batching really came into its own during the tiki era, when entrepreneurs such as Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic and their largely Filipino bar staffs made extensive use of full and partial batches (where some of the ingredients of a drink are batched and the rest are added à la minute). Their drinks were highly complex and their bars large and popular, and without batching they would have lost business. See Beach, Donn; tiki; and Bergeron, Victor “Trader Vic.”The basic techniques of batching have not changed that much over its history, but bartenders have become more creative in some of the tools they use and, often, in their choice of ingredients. Over the last five decades the beverage industry has seen countless new liqueurs and spirits introduced, from every base imaginable. Furthermore, some of the ingredients have themselves changed: canned juices, prepared syrups, frozen fruits, and fruit purees are all available to speed up batch preparation, although sometimes to the detriment of the quality of the drink.
Now in the craft cocktail era, batching has been used as a way of getting good, cocktail-bar-quality drinks into the hands of the crowd, whether it’s at a backyard party, a booth at a culinary festival, or even a concert venue—from a lobby bar at a single performance to a dozen bars scattered around an all-weekend music festival, with potential customers that number in the tens of thousands.
With batching, how to proceed depends on the drink and the situation. With some drinks—those that are basically all spirits, such as the Old-Fashioned and the Sazerac, or those that are made up of spirits and fortified wines, such as the Martini, the Manhattan, and the Bamboo—there is no reason not to batch them completely and bottle them. They are shelf-stable and will keep for months at room temperature (leave the garnishes out, of course, and for the Sazerac save the absinthe for rinsing the glass or plastic cup it will be served in). Others should never be completely batched. The only way to batch a Ramos Gin Fizz is in parts: the gin, citrus, sugar, and orange flower water can go in one container, but the egg whites and cream must go in another or they will curdle, and the sparkling water must go in on its own, as always with carbonated ingredients. With regular sours, where cream and egg whites play no part, to batch them in parts or completely depends on the situation.
For standard bar service or a situation such as the all-weekend festival, a set of partial batches may be the best solution. Generally, one mix is used for the syrups and sweet ingredients, another mix for all the juices, and a third for all the spirits. (It is important to take note of hygiene and to use food-safe containers, including buckets.) It is best practice to keep citrus and other fresh juices separate from the sweet ingredients or the spirits, because batching them together gives those ingredients a limited shelf life. Thus, a Mai Tai that normally takes five steps to build (lime juice, orgeat, curaçao, two separate rums) can be built in three (lime juice, orgeat, rum-curaçao mix). Determining the shelf life of citrus juices is complicated, but it is not long (some eight to eighteen hours, depending on storage conditions). Partially batched drinks have the advantage of longevity, since everything but the citrus is stable for the duration of service.
Punch is a bit of a special case: here, one can keep the “shrub” on which it is based, an equal-parts sugar and citrus juice mix, refrigerated for several days. To assemble a batch, one merely has to add spirits, water and any carbonated ingredients, and ice and grate a little nutmeg over the top. In this case, the spirits can also be batched with the shrub if desired, but the water should be reserved until needed, as once it is added the punch goes stale fairly quickly.
For an event with a predetermined number of cocktails and a fairly brief, set period of service, it might be a better idea to pre-batch full recipes even for the sours. This is useful for parties, weddings, shows, and other large events. Besides being extremely fast to serve, full-cocktail batches have another advantage over making drinks from scratch. With any cocktail, there is a window of acceptability and error in terms of its measurements. Jiggers can only be accurate to about within an eighth of an ounce (4 ml). With most ingredients, that is an acceptable tolerance, and a good bartender will adjust afterward if necessary. Obviously, the busier the bar, the more likely those tolerances are to be exceeded and the less likely that adjustment will be made. But with a large-scale recipe, mixers have the option of using measurements they could never use in an individual recipe. Rather than calculating down to the eighth of an ounce, they can use decimal fractions of ounces or metric measurements (even in countries that use the metric system, many bartenders prefer imperial measures for their speed). That means, for example, you can have a recipe calling for 0.62 of an ounce of pineapple juice per drink, a quantity that cannot be measured for a single drink.
The Savoy Cocktail Book, for 75 people. Here is the recipe precisely as it appears in the book:1 dash Angostura Bitters.
1 dash Orange Bitters.
1 Teaspoonful Lime Juice.
1/3 Curaçao.
2/3 Dry Gin.
Assuming that the thirds here are of a 1 ½-ounce jigger, this gives you a metric recipe that looks like this:
1.2 ml Angostura bitters
1.2 ml orange bitters
5 ml lime juice
15 ml curaçao
30 ml dry gin
Let’s say you taste this and find it unbalanced (most will) and after tinkering come up with the following formula:
1.2 ml Angostura bitters
1.5 ml orange bitters
15 ml lime juice
18 ml curaçao
52 ml dry gin
This would be extremely hard and slow to mix from scratch in a bar, involving eyedroppers and graduated cylinders. Yet it’s easy to make seventy-five of them (rounding to the nearest 5 ml):
90 ml Angostura bitters
115 ml orange bitters
1,125 ml lime juice
1,350 ml curaçao
3,900 ml dry gin
Once there is a universal measurement, batches can be sized according to the vessels being used for storage or serving. This Pegu Club can also easily be adapted to 125 guests if ticket sales surge or 45 if rain is in the forecast. See Pegu Club Cocktail.
It is important to note that sugar, citrus, and bitter ingredients have to be treated carefully. These ingredients, on a very large scale, can multiply their potency over time in the batch. Regular tasting is key in ensuring that the batch is not too rich or satisfying. A drink that is too rich will keep the drinker from ordering another. Guests will either feel full in the stomach from the sugar or, if too much citrus is consumed, their palate and throat will be overpowered, pushing them to drink something lighter like soda, champagne, or wine.
It is also important to pay attention to one of the largest ingredients in any cocktail, if not the largest: water. There are many ways to add it. Shaking a drink adds 25–60 percent dilution. Stirred drinks add 20–40 percent dilution. A lot of that variation depends on the ice used. Large, cold cubes will melt fairly slowly but can chill the drink more than “hotel ice” can (soft chips, cylinders, and such). If you have the good cubes, it will speed service if you pre-dilute the drink to a degree. When using “hotel ice” or faster-melting cubes then refrigerating the batch to pour over said ice will be helpful. Ice can vary in different establishments, so the only real way to ensure proper execution is to check by taste before the guests. See ice, science of its use.
When making syrups for batch recipes, it is easier to stick to 1:1 syrups (where water and sugar are in equal parts) rather than the common 2:1 syrups used in bars (two parts sugar to one of water), so water addition, or dilution, can be easier and more consistent. Events and venues tend to have larger-sized glassware, making it necessary for syrup recipes to have the full amount of water. Often, purees and prepackaged syrups require adjusting depending on their thickness, sugar levels, and potency of flavor. Batching purees with juices and syrups to control their sweet and sour elements is necessary. Batching fresh fruit elements with spirits or liqueurs flavored with the same spirit is a great way to control costs and add fresh fruit elements to a product designed for shelf stability and cost over flavor. Often fortification with alcohol is necessary in some of the batches to extend their shelf lives and help hold consistency.
See also mixology (how to mix drinks).
Reiner, Julie. The Craft Cocktail Party. New York: Grand Central, 2015.
Wondrich, David Punch! New York: Perigee, 2010.
By: Leo DeGroff