Imbibe [shaken or stirred]

Sorry, James Bond. You may be handy with a gun, but you drink your martini all wrong. In the debate of shaken vs stirred, I have a few words.

Shake when there's fruit juice, a dairy product, a thicker liquor, or egg whites (duh). Otherwise, we're stirring. Simple as that. Shaking when unnecessary means you're clouding the drink, melting too much ice and diluting your drink excessively, making some more sensitive liquors bitter, and killing the bubbles in your carbonated beverages. The Boys' Club (hate the name, love the blog) did a fun animated video on this.

I have plenty of shaken cocktails I could share with you, since egg white drinks are my forte, but I'm going to go with the East Side Press, my favorite drink at the moment featuring Domaine de Canton, a ginger liquor.

I read the recipe wrong on their site, and instead of adding brown sugar we used it to make a sugar rim- VAST improvement if you ask me. D, my resident bartender, wanted me to add that he recommends a dry shake if you're using egg whites, which means shaking all the liquid ingredients vigorously, then adding the ice and shaking again (although not everyone agrees: here's a differing opinion, and a great cocktail recipe to boot).

I'm extra partial to this drink because I fed it to Murray the Moose deer, my faux-taxidermy friend, as you can see in the picture below. I tagged it in a competition by Julibox, my favorite monthly subscription cocktail club, and won a free box! Those people rock.

The moral of the story here is always share your drink.