Red cocktail with ice and orange peel garnish.

Batched Cocktails Made Easy

Learn about when, why, and how to batch cocktails, with tips, guides, and simple batched recipes to get you started.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Batching cocktails is a tried and tested way to deliver consistent cocktails quickly. Letting you serve more people more cocktails, more often.

Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll be able to spend more time focusing on guests and giving them a better drinking experience.

WHAT ARE BATCHED COCKTAILS?

Put simply, batching cocktails is a technique used to help bartenders speed up serving times.

Here, we’ll give you some essential batching tips, and the lowdown on some of the different techniques for creating brilliant batches.

3 KEY WAYS TO BATCH COCKTAILS

There are a few different batching techniques you can learn depending on how and why you need to batch a cocktail. Here are some key ones you might use in your bar:

  1. Single serve – this involves pre-mixing individual cocktails that can be served to a guest with a garnished glass. This is a perfect option for self-service or creating cocktails in jars where a bartender can just add ice, garnish, and serve.  
  2. Bottle batching multiple cocktails – this is like a single serve but ideal for larger groups, to speed up service or even for individual dispense by bartenders.  
  3. Vessel batching – this technique is often prepared in a large dispenser or a barrel. This means that a large batch of cocktails can be made for easy individual dispense.

THE 5 GOLDEN RULES OF BATCHING

The time and effort you put into batching will be rewarded with its benefits and can take the pressure off during busy shifts.

To help you bring this great technique to your game, here are our top five batching tips:

  1. Select the most suitable cocktails for batching, like Margaritas, Negronis or Manhattans.
  2. Always stir or shake your batch before serving to make sure your cocktails are all consistent.
  3. Test smaller versions of your drink before making any larger batched quantities.
  4. Store in clean, air-tight containers with labels so you can clearly see what it is and when it was made.
  5. Top Tip: only make large batches of your best-selling cocktails to avoid unnecessary waste.

BATCHED COCKTAIL CALCULATOR

Getting the ratios right is key to a great batched cocktail. Taking the Margarita as an example, we’ve put together this simple batched cocktail calculation to ensure you get a consistent, great quality cocktail every time.

From single serve 100ml recipe (serves 1)

  • 50ml tequila
  • 25ml orange liqueur
  • 25ml lime juice

To batched 1000ml recipe (serves 10)

  • 500ml tequila
  • 25Oml orange liqueur
  • 250ml lime juice

You’ll notice it’s quite a simple bit of maths to batch up 10 x the amount, so once you’ve decided which cocktail you want to batch (remember to check it’s suitable and one that sells well), simply take your single serve measurements and multiply by how many serves you want to make.

BATCHED RECIPES

There are lots of great batching recipes that, once you nail them, will be your go to time-saving drinks. Check out these simple recipes to get you started.

FAQs

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Batching cocktails is a tried-and-tested, efficient technique, used by many bartenders to improve their ways of working. 
  • Batching allows you to deliver consistent cocktails quickly, reducing stress on staff and wait times for guests. 
  • There are many different techniques that can be used to batch cocktails, depending on the style of a venue – thoroughly investigate the batching technique you want to work with and then test and learn it over time.