Why are cocktails layered? The principle of cocktail layering

Cocktail is a drink made from two or more kinds of wine or wine mixed with fruit juice. The earliest written record of "cocktail" as the name of wine can be traced back to 1788. However, as to why cocktails are called "cocktails", this is probably one of the most difficult questions to verify in the history of alcoholic beverages. If you have observed and drunk cocktails, you must know that cocktails are layered. Why is this? Let's continue reading!

Contents of this article

1. Why are cocktails layered?

2. Cocktail layering principle

3. Origin of Cocktail

Why are cocktails layered?

A cocktail is a drink made from two or more liquors or from liquor mixed with fruit juice, which are poured into glasses in sequence according to their density so that they do not mix together.

Because alcohols can mix with each other, when making a cocktail, you should pour in the alcohol with higher density first, and then the alcohol with lower density. This will naturally separate the alcohols. On the contrary, if you pour in the alcohol with lower density first, the alcohol with higher density will inevitably pass through the alcohol that was poured in first, resulting in more mixing and affecting the separation effect.

The Principle of Cocktail Layering

Cocktail layering mainly utilizes the difference in specific gravity between various materials. The materials produced by different manufacturers have different alcohol content or concentration. The bartender only needs to master the specific gravity data of various wines to be able to mix a variety of different and beautiful layered cocktails.

For example, brown sugar water can be used as the bottom layer, and the top layer can be made of alcohol or diluted fruit juice with a density higher than that of brown sugar water. You can think of density as the sweetness of sugar, which may be easier to understand.

The technique of using the layering method is to make the wine or materials clearly distinguishable in layers or colors. The method is not too difficult. You only need to decide the order of adding the ingredients and the layers according to the concentration ratio and alcohol content of the ingredients. However, when mixing, you must be careful to pour the ingredients into the cup gently along the edge of the cup, and never rush them directly to avoid confusion.

Origin of cocktail

The earliest written record of "cocktail" as the name of a drink can be traced back to 1788, but as to why cocktails are called "cocktails", this is probably one of the most difficult questions to verify in the history of alcoholic beverages. Among the many plausible explanations, one that sounds more reasonable is that people at that time jokingly called a mixed-blood racehorse "cocktail", so the concept of "mixed" was borrowed to the drink.