Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
I have a confession to make. When I'm making a drink at home for myself, more often than not I drink it out of a thermal insulated tumbler and not a fancy cocktail glass. This might sound blasphemous coming from a cocktail lover. But hear me out first, then you can judge me.
OK, here's why: temperature retention and preventing excessive dilution. Because the cups are insulated the drink stays colder and ice melts MUCH slower. Meaning my drinks taste the same from the first sip to the last sip.
But that got me thinking, can I quantify exactly how much the slower the ice is melting and how much water I'm saving from entering my cocktails?
So for this video I made three different types of drinks: stirred drink over rock of ice, shaken drink over standard ice and a swizzled drink served over crushed ice. I weighed out all the ice beforehand, then after an hour I strained out the drink and weighed the remaining ice. The results generally confirmed what I expected but with one surprising twist!
Some other notes:
- Let's get this out of the way: cocktails don't look nearly as good served in an opaque metal cup compared to a beautiful cocktail glass. They just don't. That might be a dealbreaker for some people and I fully understand that. I wouldn't serve guests drinks in an insulated tumbler, but for me personally I think it's worth it to prevent over-dilution.
- I can't stress enough how surprised I was that the crushed ice drink served in a standard metal cup was competitive with the insulated tumbler. Normally when I drink a mint julep out of one of those cups, they start tasting watered down fairly quickly.
- One flaw in my testing procedure was that the drinks were just sitting on the table for an hour as opposed to being held in someone's hand. The additional heat from a hand may have seriously altered the outcome of my testing.
- I used a kitchen thermometer to measure drink temperature throughout the testing. Interestingly, some of the drinks in the insulated tumblers actually went down in temperature as time passed. The shaken margarita had the most ice melt and had the highest rising temperature. I'm happy to provide the data on temperature fluctuations in the comments if anyone is interested.
If you've made it this far, please let me know what you thought of my testing procedure in the comments. I'm not a scientist, so I fully acknowledge that I might've made some mistakes along the way. Would love to know what you all think! Thanks so much!
INSTAGRAM: @throughthemixingglass
FACEBOOK: @ThroughTheMixingGlass
TWITTER: @ThruMixingGlass
#Cocktails #Mixology #DrinkScience #Bourbon #Tequila #Margarita #NewPal #MintJulep #Negroni
I have a confession to make. When I'm making a drink at home for myself, more often than not I drink it out of a thermal insulated tumbler and not a fancy cocktail glass. This might sound blasphemous coming from a cocktail lover. But hear me out first, then you can judge me.
OK, here's why: temperature retention and preventing excessive dilution. Because the cups are insulated the drink stays colder and ice melts MUCH slower. Meaning my drinks taste the same from the first sip to the last sip.
But that got me thinking, can I quantify exactly how much the slower the ice is melting and how much water I'm saving from entering my cocktails?
So for this video I made three different types of drinks: stirred drink over rock of ice, shaken drink over standard ice and a swizzled drink served over crushed ice. I weighed out all the ice beforehand, then after an hour I strained out the drink and weighed the remaining ice. The results generally confirmed what I expected but with one surprising twist!
Some other notes:
- Let's get this out of the way: cocktails don't look nearly as good served in an opaque metal cup compared to a beautiful cocktail glass. They just don't. That might be a dealbreaker for some people and I fully understand that. I wouldn't serve guests drinks in an insulated tumbler, but for me personally I think it's worth it to prevent over-dilution.
- I can't stress enough how surprised I was that the crushed ice drink served in a standard metal cup was competitive with the insulated tumbler. Normally when I drink a mint julep out of one of those cups, they start tasting watered down fairly quickly.
- One flaw in my testing procedure was that the drinks were just sitting on the table for an hour as opposed to being held in someone's hand. The additional heat from a hand may have seriously altered the outcome of my testing.
- I used a kitchen thermometer to measure drink temperature throughout the testing. Interestingly, some of the drinks in the insulated tumblers actually went down in temperature as time passed. The shaken margarita had the most ice melt and had the highest rising temperature. I'm happy to provide the data on temperature fluctuations in the comments if anyone is interested.
If you've made it this far, please let me know what you thought of my testing procedure in the comments. I'm not a scientist, so I fully acknowledge that I might've made some mistakes along the way. Would love to know what you all think! Thanks so much!
INSTAGRAM: @throughthemixingglass
FACEBOOK: @ThroughTheMixingGlass
TWITTER: @ThruMixingGlass
#Cocktails #Mixology #DrinkScience #Bourbon #Tequila #Margarita #NewPal #MintJulep #Negroni
