How to use a Hawthorne strainer

A Hawthorne is four things: a perforated plate, a spring coil fixed round its edge, a handle, and two or three prongs on the underside. Each has a job, and most mistakes come from misunderstanding one of them.

• The coil is the strainer. It fills the gap between the plate and the tin wall, and it is the part that actually holds ice back. Everything about seating a Hawthorne is about getting the coil against the wall all the way round.
• The plate is a flow controller rather than a filter. Its perforations let liquid through, and sliding the plate relative to the coil widens or narrows the main opening.
• The prongs on the underside rest on the tin rim and set the depth, so the plate sits at a consistent height rather than dropping into the drink.
• The gate tab is the raised piece on the plate's edge. Pushing it with your index finger moves the plate and changes the opening.

A Hawthorne is not a fine filter and was never meant to be. It gates ice. The gap at the coil is a few millimeters, which is a wall to an ice cube and an open door to a lime pip - which is why shaken citrus drinks get a second strainer. When to double strain a cocktail is that decision in full.

1. Break the shaker seal properly first. Heel of the hand on the large tin at the widest point of the join, not a pull. Set the small tin aside. Why shaker tins stick and leak covers this.
2. Drop the Hawthorne in coil-down, plate up. The coil goes toward the ice. The flat side faces you. Press it down until the prongs find the rim.
3. Check the coil all the way round. Look at the join between coil and tin wall. If you can see a gap anywhere, lift and re-seat. A proud coil is the only reason ice reaches a glass.
4. Grip tin and strainer as one object. Thumb or index finger on the gate tab, remaining fingers wrapped round the tin. The strainer should not be able to move relative to the tin.
5. Pour in one motion, medium speed. Tip from the side of the tin, not the back. One continuous pour reads as control; three dribbles do not.
6. Use the gate at the end. Narrowing the gate as the tin empties slows the last ounce, which is where splashing and ice escape both happen.

If you are double straining, hold the mesh in the other hand over the glass and pour through both. If you are not, the Hawthorne does the whole job and the only thing left is not pouring too fast.

Most home users never move the gate, which is a shame because it is the one feature a Hawthorne has that a julep strainer does not.

The practical habit worth building: start the pour wide open and close the gate with your index finger as the tin empties. That is how you finish a pour without a shard of ice landing on top of a drink you just strained.

• Ice gets into the glass: the coil is not seated against the wall all the way round, or the spring has loosened. Re-seat first; if it still happens, the spring has stretched and the strainer needs replacing.
• Pulp gets into the glass: that is normal. A Hawthorne does not stop pulp. Add a fine mesh.
• The strainer falls into the tin mid-pour: you are gripping the tin only. Hold both as one object with a finger on the gate.
• Pour splashes out sideways: pouring too fast, or tipping from the back of the tin rather than the side. Slow down and rotate the tin.
• Spring will not fit a mixing glass: Hawthornes vary and some are sized for tins only. A julep strainer is the correct tool for a mixing glass anyway - see hawthorne vs julep strainer.
• Coil comes off in the sink: the spring unhooks. It pushes back on; if it keeps happening, that spring is done.

Everything about a Hawthorne lasts indefinitely except the spring, and the spring fails in two ways. It stretches, which widens the coil until it no longer fills the gap, and it traps residue in the coil, which is both unpleasant and a reason people throw them away.

Pull the spring off and wash it separately. It unhooks and rehooks in a few seconds, and running water through a coiled spring without removing it does very little - citrus pulp and sugar sit inside the coil, which is exactly where you cannot see them. A dishwasher is fine for both parts; drying the spring matters more than drying the plate, because trapped water in a coil is what starts rust spots on cheaper strainers. How to clean bar tools covers the station, and best cocktail strainers covers the choice between types.

Springs are sold separately and cost very little. A Hawthorne with a stretched spring is not a dead strainer, it is a strainer that needs a two-dollar part.