Forget Every Cocktail Shaker You've Ever Known. Elevated Craft's Is Better.
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I made 16 lemon drops last Friday night. Kacey Musgraves's Star-Crossed movie was finally streaming, so my friends gathered at my apartment to get buzzed on the summery cocktail while watching our gal rock the hell out of sequined eyebrows. Eight women, two rounds of lemon drops, 16 drinks—a feat that you might assume would've chained me to the bar cart, measuring and shaking away from first song to last (no skips). But no, after stumbling through some mental multiplication, I was flying through those lemon drops, mixing three at once without having to fudge the ideal ratio of vodka to lemon juice to triple sec to honey simple syrup, without dousing my shirt in booze, and without over-diluting or under-chilling the final product. And then, movie wrapped, the death of matrimony celebrated, my roommate breezed through a round of dirty martinis for the group.
So, 24 drinks. It would've been possible with the cheap cocktail shaker that sat on our bar cart up until a few weeks ago, but it also would've been annoying to the nth degree. No, for this, for Kacey's night, we really did need what Elevated Craft makes: a "hybrid" shaker with more features for home bartenders than you'd think to want.
It's built like a tank but refined in design.
There is a classic cocktail shaker look that permeates home bar cart culture. It's the simple cobbler shaker—a rounded lid that squeezes over a stout body, made from thin stainless steel that you could ID fingerprints off of once the condensation sets in. This is not that look. Rather, the Elevated Craft shaker follows the basic cobbler template, but there's more to it, like double-walled stainless steel and an extra-large tumbler. On Friday, I was able to fit the ingredients for three 3.5-ounce cocktails, plus plentiful ice, into it. I shook for the recommended 12 to 15 seconds to mix and chill the batch, but my fingers didn't freeze or slip with condensation, because there was none. In fact, on Saturday morning, hours after the shaker had been unceremoniously deposited in the sink with the lid unscrewed and the remnants of a last dirty martini inside, I found chunks of structurally sound ice inside it. And my guests complimented the way this shaker looked, which is a nerdy thing to be amped about, but here we are.
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You'll appreciate the little things.
I mentioned features that you've probably never considered asking of a cocktail shaker. For instance, this shaker's top doubles as a jigger, with ounce markers along its interior from one and six—and half ounces. Milliliters, too, if you're feeling unAmerican. Another example: the strainer spout is not only very beautiful but also intended to facilitate a pour that doesn't "glug," according to Elevated Craft. So far, no glugging for me. And then, instead of squeezing the top onto the tumbler, Elevated Craft added threads (like a mason jar) to the design, which all but eliminates spills. Or the lid flying off mid-shake, as happened to a cobbler shaker full of margarita in my apartment one memorable night deep in quarantine. It's the little things.
It's all part of a better bar cart.
You absolutely do not need this quality of shaker to whip up a daiquiri or dry-shake a whiskey sour. But you seem like the kind of person who closely considers their at-home cocktail set up (be it bar cart or artful arrangement on the edge of the kitchen counter), who has memorized one (or seven) recipes to mix at their leisure, and who sees themselves partaking of cocktails for the next seven decades (this shaker is built to outlive you), then consider Elevated Craft. The crowd-funded brand doesn't consider shakers an afterthought. Neither should you.
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Photography by Timothy Mulcare. Prop styling Miako Katoh.
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