Muddlers

Start with the head. A toothed or ribbed head grips lime wedges and sugar cubes better and is what you want for heavy work. A flat head is gentler and better for mint, because it presses rather than tears. Then look at the length in relation to your glass: 25 centimetres is enough for a tumbler, and 26.5 centimetres also gives you room in a tall highball glass without your knuckles hitting the rim. The material mainly determines the weight and the feel in your hand. Plastic is light and safe against glass, wood sits warm in the hand and cushions the impact, and copper and stainless steel are heavy enough to do half the work for you, so you need less force and the glass is at less risk.

Put the fresh ingredients in the bottom of the glass, add a splash of sugar syrup and press down two to four times with a quarter turn. More is not better. For a Mojito press the mint gently against the bottom and leave the leaves intact. For a Caipirinha you can crush the lime wedges firmly, so the juice and the oils from the peel come out. With an Old Fashioned you only muddle a sugar cube with a few drops of bitters, and you do that in the glass you serve in, so nothing has to be poured over. Only then do you top up with ice and spirits.

Rinse a muddler straight after use, because sugar syrup dries hard between the teeth of the head and is then almost impossible to get out. Stainless steel is dishwasher safe. Wood is not: it soaks up water, swells and then cracks along the grain, so wash it by hand and let it dry standing upright. Copper is coated and loses its colour in the machine, so treat it just like wood. Throw away a muddler with a cracked head, because a crack holds on to moisture and sugar.

The glass you muddle in matters, because you need a thick base. Look at the mojito glasses for the tall models and at the old fashioned glasses for the low, heavy tumblers that let you work straight in the serving glass. After that you stir with a bar spoon and shake in a cocktail shaker. More tools and an explanation of each one can be found on the page about bar tools.