Best cocktail strainers

A shaken drink arrives at the strainer carrying three things you do not want in the glass: chips broken off the ice by the violence of the shake, pulp and membrane from citrus, and - if you muddled anything - flecks of herb. A stirred drink carries essentially none of that, which is why the two situations need different tools.

A Hawthorne works by filling the gap between a flat plate and the wall of the tin with a coiled spring. The liquid passes between the coils; anything larger than the gap does not. That is the entire mechanism, and it means the single specification that matters is how tightly the spring is wound.

A julep has no spring at all. It is a perforated bowl that sits inside a mixing glass and holds back ice cubes, which is all a stirred drink needs. A fine mesh is a sieve with openings far smaller than any spring gap, used as a second pass under the pour. Hawthorne vs julep strainer covers the two-way choice in more depth.

We have not used every strainer here and we do not present these as test results. We compared published specification, construction and materials, what owners consistently report after long use, and - where it exists - published testing by outlets that do run a test kitchen. The axes, in order of weight:

• Spring density. The one specification that decides whether a shaken drink arrives clean. A loose coil leaves a gritty texture that no amount of technique fixes.
• Whether the spring comes out. Citrus pulp lodges in the coil. A spring you cannot remove is a spring that never gets properly clean, and that is a hygiene issue rather than an aesthetic one.
• Fit across vessels. A strainer cut for one tin and loose in another is a strainer you will fight. The good ones seat in both an 18oz and a 28oz tin and sit sensibly on a mixing glass.
• Gate control. A gate you can open and close with one thumb lets the same tool serve a shaken drink and a stirred one.
• Build and finish. Enough gauge that the plate does not flex when you press it down, and a finish that survives the gate rubbing against it.

Our full method, including what we deliberately never claim, is on how we pick.

The order matters more than the brands. Most home bars own a Hawthorne and stop, which is a reasonable place to stop - but the fine mesh is the cheaper of the two remaining purchases and makes the larger difference to the drink.

The one combination that does not work is owning only a julep. The holes are sized for ice cubes, so a shaken sour pours through carrying everything it picked up in the tin.

Everything separating a good Hawthorne from a bad one is the coil. Wound tightly, it closes the gap between plate and tin wall to something small enough to stop pulp. Wound loosely, it leaves gaps, and everything you were straining out arrives in the glass.

This is the specification bundled tool kits compromise on, because a strainer looks identical at a glance whether or not the spring is dense. If you have ever wondered why a home-made daiquiri has a faintly gritty texture and a bar's does not, check the strainer before you blame the shake. It is also why upgrading the strainer is the single highest-value swap you can make to a kit - see best bartender kits.

A simple check on a strainer you already own: hold it up to a light with the spring seated. If you can see daylight between the coils, that gap is what is reaching your glass.

A removable spring matters for a second reason. Pulp works its way into the coil and stays there, and a spring that is welded in place cannot be cleaned properly however long you run it under a tap.

Double straining means pouring through two strainers at once: the Hawthorne does the primary work on the tin, and a fine mesh held in your other hand catches what gets past the spring. It is the technique most home bars have never tried and it costs about five seconds.

1. Seat the Hawthorne on the large tin as normal, spring down, thumb on the gate.
2. Hold the fine mesh over the glass in your other hand, an inch or two above the rim so you can see the pour land.
3. Pour steadily through both. Do not rush it - a fast pour overwhelms the mesh and backs up.
4. Tap the mesh once against your hand, not against the glass, to clear it.
5. Rinse the mesh immediately. Pulp dries into the weave and is then genuinely annoying to remove.

Do not double strain a stirred drink. There is nothing in it to catch, the extra step chills nothing, and you are just adding an object to wash. How to shake a cocktail covers where this fits in the wider sequence.

• Any strainer with a welded-in spring. You cannot clean the coil, and the coil is where pulp collects.
• Flat sieve-style 'cocktail strainers' with punched holes and no spring. They are julep strainers wearing the wrong name, and they will not hold back shaken citrus.
• A strainer sold only as part of a twelve-piece boxed set. The piece count is the marketing, and the strainer is reliably the part the budget came out of.
• Novelty-shaped strainers. Anything where the plate is a shape rather than a circle fits one vessel and rattles in every other.
• A second Hawthorne, if you already own one. The useful second strainer is a fine mesh, not a duplicate.

And one thing worth spending on instead: if your tins leak or stick, that is a bigger daily irritation than strainer texture and no strainer fixes it. Best weighted shaking tins is the page for that, and why shaker tins stick and leak diagnoses it for free first.