Post #139975 by KuKuAhu on Mon, Feb 7, 2005 7:23 PM

Cross posted from http://www.fraternalorderofmoai.org

I've always used a pharmacists jigger (little pyrex shot glass with every sort of increment and measurement you could want molded into it and a tiny pour spout on one sides lip) to measure out my cocktails.

Problem is that it leaves me doing the old "pour the liquid and then lift the glass into the light so that I can see the amount marked on the side" manuever. I can be fairly quick about this, but even still I find this slows me down. I've often done conversions of the measurements for cocktail recipes ahead of time, so that I can make multiple drinks with larger quantities of ingredients and thus shave minutes of the process, but when trying to get that one Grog Log recipe just right, or making everybody a different drink, I'm still there reading and squinting.

On less complicated drinks I can just count the pour. This is rapid since I don't have to read off little hatch marks. But I don't often drink too many simple drinks given my tiki tastes.

One night I'm hanging out at friends house who makes a mean Singapore Sling and digs on mixology like I do. I've got the bar job that night and the house is packed. I'm getting killed mixing diffrent drinks for everyone there, many of which are old recipes that require small amounts of multiple ingredients. I'd been using my jigger when my pal says, "Here, use this instead. I just picked it up."

He hands me a plastic Oxo brand tiny measuring cup. I take a look at it and note that it has pretty much the same markings as my jigger, and it has the pour spout too. But what really makes it slick is the fact that the markings are on an angle inside the cup. So when ya pour, you can just look down at the measurement. Half the time I didn't ever have to lift the thing off the bar save to dump the mixture into the shaker or glass. I flew through the rest of the nights mixing like a champ, and was able to get out from behind the bar in record time.

Now I'm nto much of a gadget guy, and honestly most of Oxo's gear just looks like normal kitchen junk with big-ass black rubber grips on it, but this thing is brilliant. It's also plastic, so like my pyrex jiggers, it doesn't shatter if ya drop it. And it's cheap.

If you are mixing from the Grog Log or other books with complex vintage cocktails (or even new cocktails that need to be precise), I can't recommend this thing enough.

Anyway, just wanted to pass that along. No, I'm not working for Oxo.

Ahu (Anybody need a well used set of pharm jiggers? :wink: )