Strainer
A strainer ( Engl. Strainer , rarely Strainers ) is a Barwerkzeug of metal for making cocktails . It is used to hold back the ice cubes used for shaking or stirring and, if necessary, pieces of fruit in the cocktail shaker or mixing glass when pouring ( straining ) the ready-mixed liquid into the cocktail glass.
Different basic types
The Hawthorne strainer is widespread and at the edge of which a flexible spiral made of wire adapts exactly to the opening of the shaker. The Julep Strainer is simpler and older . It is a large, round spoon with small holes. When straining, such sieve spoons are not held in front of or over the shaker, but rather with the curved side down into the shaker.
A strainer is already integrated in the three-part Cobbler Shaker : The drink is strained through holes in the closable lid, so that no additional bar strainer is required. When double-Strain (Engl. Double strain or finest rain ), however in addition to Strainer even an ordinary household or tea strainer used to even the smallest pieces of fruit, spices, herbs or ice chips to hold back. This can also be called a bar strainer when used at the bar.
history
.jpg)
The use of bar strainers in the preparation of mixed drinks established itself towards the end of the 19th century, at a time when the golden age of cocktails had already dawned in the United States and the American bar was also enjoying increasing popularity in Europe. Ice had long been readily available and had become an indispensable ingredient in cocktails and other mixed drinks. Initially - around the middle of the 19th century - only Julep strainers were used, i.e. large, short-handled spoons with holes. Similar special spoons existed as early as the 17th and 18th centuries, for example the French Saupoudreur with a slightly smaller spoon and longer handle, which was used to spread sugar over dishes, or the British spoon strainer Mote Spoon , which was used to remove foreign particles from soups, could fish for tea later. There was also a tea caddy that looks like a scaled down julep strainer. The name Julep Strainer is reminiscent of the Mint Julep , a mixed drink that was already popular in the 19th century. It is not strained, so you don't need a strainer for the preparation, but the perforated spoon was used to hold the crushed ice and mint in the glass while drinking. Even before the start of the cocktail era, the word julep was a common name for drinks, for example fortifying liquids with some medicinal properties, which a spoon strainer could have proven to be practical when preparing them from various ingredients. The first bar book How to Mix Drinks , written by Jerry Thomas in 1862, does not yet show any strainers , and the bartender Harry Johnson is said to have also refrained in 1869 by holding two mixing glasses with the opening together and letting the drink flow out through the gap between them.
As a tool for straining cocktails, a Julep Strainer is shown for the first time in the cocktail and mix book Bariana by Louis Fouquet (1896), where it is referred to as Cuillère Passoire (e.g. sieve spoon, straining spoon) and appeared in a catalog by Farrow & Jackson (1898) it as an ice cream spoon, in Recipes of American and other iced drinks from 1902 it was both an ice cream spoon and a strainer. The shell-shaped spoon with a punched-out star in the handle is also called the Star Strainer and was manufactured around 1890 by the silver manufacturer 1847 Rogers Bros. The engraved year of the company name does not indicate the year of manufacture, but rather a galvanic surface refinement process developed in that year .
In 1889, the American Charles P. Lindley obtained a patent for a further development of the Julep Strainer, namely the revolving metal spiral. Thanks to the spiral, these bar strainers could cling elastically to the edge of the mixing bowl. The idea was further improved in the following years. The name commonly used today for such strainers with a metal spiral, Hawthorne strainer , was not introduced until much later, around 1930, by the British company Bonzer , founded in 1927 , which coined the term on its products. This guy was still just called strainer . The term Hawthorne Strainer only appeared in literature in a mix book from 1972 and, in the course of the renaissance of cocktail culture at the end of the 1990s, established itself as a general term for this type and in contrast to the traditional Julep Strainer , which was used again at the same time Fashion came.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Anistatica Miller, Jared Brown: Strainer. A historical look at a tool . Mixology -Magazin No. 4/2010, pp. 20f., English translation: Tools of the Trade: Cocktail Strainers , published online on October 5, 2012, accessed on January 27, 2014.
- ^ A b Louis Fouquet: Bariana. Paris 1896 or Louis Fouquet: Bariana. Recueil Pratique de toutes Boissons Américaines et Anglaises. Criterion Bar (self-published), Paris 1902, p. 15.
- ↑ United States Patent Office: Julep Strainer. Charles P. Lindley, Patent No. 404.204 ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Patent dated May 28, 1989 on the Museum of the American Cocktail website , accessed January 27, 2014.
- ↑ United States Patent Office: Strainer for Mixed Drinks. William Wright, Patent No. 484.276 ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Patent dated October 11, 1892 on the Museum of the American Cocktail website , accessed January 29, 2014.
- ↑ United States Patent Office: Julep Strainer. Thomas B. Lashar patent dated November 7, 1906 (Publication No. US850379 A), accessed January 29, 2014. The design corresponds to the Hawthorne strainers in use today .
