The Problem with Ice Muddling

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Visit a dozen different bars, and you will most likely see more than a dozen different techniques for doing essentially the same thing. Juicing is one of those things that every bar has to deal with one way or another, and there are countless ways to tackle it, not all of them very good.

The “Ice Muddle” is one of the “juicing” techniques I often see used by bartenders to make drinks like the Margarita, Mojito, Daiquiri, and other sour style drinks. It has a certain amount of sound and fury to it, which makes for a good show, but in the end it produces sub-par results on several levels. For some reason it appears to be rather prevalent here in my home town of Seattle, which is why Gary Regan coined the term “Seattle Muddle” to describe it when he was in town to research one of his books.

While the ice muddle at least shows a desire to use fresh juices in cocktails, it does so at the cost of not being able to provide a proper measure, and in overly damaging the ice as well. It also is a technique that can only really be done with poor quality “chip” ice, and not the nice large cubes which are preferred.

Dry muddling is a better approach to getting fresh juice, and if you then measure the juice properly, it can work quite well.

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