Cocktail balance: sweet, sour, strong and weak

The ratios behind the classic families, how to adjust for your limes and liqueurs, and how to taste and fix a drink.

Most classic cocktails rest on a handful of ratios. Learn those and you can read any recipe, fix a drink that tastes wrong, and invent your own.

The sour: 2 : ¾ : ¾

Two parts spirit, three-quarters fresh citrus, three-quarters simple syrup (60 / 22.5 / 22.5 ml). The Daiquiri, Whiskey Sour and Gimlet all sit near it. When a liqueur replaces the syrup, as in the Margarita and Sidecar, it supplies the sugar as well as flavour; the ratio drifts towards 2 : 1 : 1 with a little extra syrup if the liqueur is dry.

The old fashioned: spirit, a little sugar, bitters

60 ml spirit to about 5 ml rich syrup and two dashes of bitters. Water from stirring finishes it.

Spirit and vermouth: 2 : 1 upwards

The Manhattan is 2 : 1 whiskey to sweet vermouth. Martinis range from 1 : 1 (common around 1900) to 5 : 1 and beyond (the "dry" Martini of the mid-20th century). Equal parts, as in the Negroni and Last Word, is another whole family.

Tasting and fixing

• Too sharp: add 5 ml syrup, or check your citrus; lemons and limes vary.
• Too sweet or flat: a few drops of citrus, or a dash of bitters.
• Hot and harsh: it needs more dilution; stir or shake longer.
• Thin and watery: too much dilution, or the ice was wet. Start again with dry ice.
• Dull: try two drops of saline solution (one part salt to four of water). Salt lifts flavour without tasting salty.

Taste a drop from a straw or spoon before you strain. Professionals do it every time.

Citrus

Squeeze lemons and limes the same day, ideally within a few hours. Bottled juice tastes cooked and dull. Orange and grapefruit juice are much less acidic than lemon and lime, so they cannot do the same job alone.