The Best Cocktail Strainers 2024 | The Strategist

Nov 04, 2024

A series where we find out which products the professionals (who really know what they’re talking about) actually use and really stand behind. Read more here.

A series where we find out which products the professionals (who really know what they’re talking about) actually use and really stand behind. Read more here.

Cocktail strainers play a key role in ensuring that your drink tastes the way you intend it to. Not only do they remove solids (like herbs or fruit); they also ensure there’s just the right amount of ice chips in a drink. Too many, and the drink is uneven; too few, and there’s no real texture.

Tyler Caffall, a veteran bartender at Too Soon in Portland, Oregon, describes straining a cocktail as the “pre-garnish” step. “It affects the way a cocktail looks and it makes the texture correct,” he says. “It’s one of the finishing touches.” A good strainer is ultimately responsible for an icy but silky smooth drink.

Kapri Robinson, a bartender at Allegory in D.C. and the founder of the non-profit cocktail competition Chocolate City’s Best, says strainers should always be used for shaken drinks.“If you want to do cocktails that come in stemware, like a Bee’s Knees or a whiskey sour, you definitely want to have some type of strainer so you’re keeping the ice out,” she says. “It’s up to the person who is making the drink, but for drinks you want to serve without ice in them, have a strainer ready to go.”

Shaken versus stirred is always an important distinction in bartending, but it’s even more important when it comes to strainers. Each mixing style typically uses a different tool. There are two primary types of cocktail strainers: a Hawthorne strainer, used for shaken drinks, and a julep strainer, used for stirred ones. The former is a flat paddle with a spring around the front, while the latter looks more like an oversize slotted spoon. Stirred drinks are often mixed together in a glass container and don’t have as many of those bits of broken ice that shaking creates. (And if you’re looking for cups to strain your stirred juleps into, we have recommendations for some nice personalized julep cups.)

There is one other kind of strainer, a tea or fine strainer, which is a mesh cone used as a second line of defense against ice chips and debris in double straining. Some bartenders dislike this technique because they think it removes too much texture from the drink, but others rely on it, so I’ve included one fine strainer below. As for the other two types, there are a few options that the four bartenders I spoke with recommended, and that would be great tools for stocking a home bar.

Every single bartender I spoke with recommended the Koriko strainer. It’s the industry standard. “The reason why I like the Koriko is because it fully covers the top of the shaker,” Robinson says. “It helps keep most of your ice chips and any solids out of your finished cocktail, and it strains a little bit more cleanly.”

Mike Capoferri, the owner operator of Thunderbolt cocktail bar in Los Angeles, thinks the Koriko strainer is the best because “it has a tightly wound coil, so there’s no need to double strain with a fine strainer for most cocktails. It also has a wide enough diameter to work on both shaker tins and mixing glasses. I’m all for any tool that helps me work more efficiently and carry less equipment.”

Some Hawthorne strainers have two coils, so you can double up the springs for an even tighter, cleaner strain. They come in many shapes and sizes, but some bartenders don’t want a long handle getting in their way as they pour. Caffall recommends an option that’s “less paddle, more lid.”

Abigail Gullo ran the bar program at Compère Lapin and is the creative director of Loa, both in New Orleans, and her pick is an antique-style strainer that’s a mix between the two main types of strainer. “It’s got holes in the center like a julep strainer and a thin spring that goes all the way around it,” Gullo says. “It’s my favorite, because I know no matter what drink I make, I can use just this one tool. Strainers become very personal. Pick what you like and what feels good in your hand, and keep using it.”

If stirred drinks are your focus, having a julep strainer on hand is a good idea. “You can technically use a Hawthorne strainer for both, but for me, the julep strainer is great for keeping out the ice in a stirred cocktail,” Robinson says. “It’s less aeration, too. You can get closer to the glass and it’s a nice clean pour from your stirring vessel with a julep strainer.”

Gullo, who collected vintage barware even before she became a bartender, loves decorative julep strainers that look like clamshells or have a little flair to them. “The julep strainer was not originally created to strain cocktails, but to put in a julep,” she says. “You’d sip the julep with the spoon over the ice; it was meant to keep the ice from your lips. That’s why they were so decorative, too, because it was like putting a decorative spoon in your drink, or a decorative straw. I love the ones that are shaped like clamshells.”

“Double straining a cocktail means that you not only use a Hawthorne strainer — which is the one that goes over the shaker — but also use a mesh strainer that has a cone shape,” Robinson says. “Sometimes people do a double strain to make sure they’re catching absolutely all solids.” If you’re just making drinks at home, it’s very unlikely you’ll need to double strain. However, since everything about your favorite drink comes down to taste, if you do want to use a tea strainer, Caffall encourages double checking the size before you buy. “Viski makes solid products, just look out for the size of the basket,” he says. “A 3-to-3.5-inch basket should be good for most drinks. Anything smaller than that and it’ll feel like you’re dumping over the sides. Anything larger than that and it’ll feel like you’re straining pasta water.”

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