Best cocktail smoker kits with torch

Kits vary enormously and the listings are not always clear. A complete one has five things, and the last one is the one that is missing most often.

• The lid or top. Wood or metal, with a mesh screen and a well for the chips. This is the actual product.
• A torch. Usually a small butane culinary torch. Quality varies, and a torch with an adjustable flame is worth having.
• Wood chips, ideally four kinds. One wood is not enough to find out what you like.
• A brush or scraper. For clearing spent chips off the screen. Minor, and its absence is annoying.
• Butane. Frequently NOT included, because it cannot be shipped by air in many cases. Check before ordering.

The butane gap is the single most common complaint about smoker kits, and it is almost always a shipping restriction rather than a cost saving. Buy a can locally at the same time and the problem disappears.

These are selections on published contents and mechanism rather than on test results. We weighted:

• Wood variety. Four kinds beats one, decisively. It is the cheapest part of the kit and the part that most changes your results.
• Lid fit. Whether it seats on a standard rocks glass rim, and whether it also sits on a decanter or a bottle neck.
• Screen removability. Resin builds up. A screen you can lift out and scrub stays usable; one you cannot gets sticky and stays sticky.
• Torch adjustability. A flame you can turn down lights chips rather than incinerating them, which is most of the difference between smoke and char.
• Material. Wood lids look better and absorb smoke over time; metal is easier to clean and reads as equipment.

A culinary butane torch is a genuinely safe tool used properly and a genuinely dangerous one used carelessly, and the difference is mostly about where you point it and what is nearby.

• Light away from the glass, then bring it in. Igniting directly over the drink risks a flare and puts raw butane smell into the smoke.
• Keep the flame small. You are toasting chips until they smolder, not setting them alight. A big flame produces char and acrid smoke.
• Nothing flammable within arm's reach. Bar towels, paper garnish, high-proof spirit with the bottle open.
• Never refill near a flame, and let the torch cool before refilling.
• Not over a crowded bar cart. Do the smoking on a clear surface, then carry the drink.

High-proof spirits are worth a specific mention: anything over about 50% ABV with an open neck near a flame is a risk, and overproof rum in particular is a bad thing to have uncapped next to a torch.

Wood lids are the ones you see in photographs. They look warm, they sit well on a rocks glass, and they absorb smoke compounds over time, which means an old lid carries a faint character of everything it has ever burned. Some people like that and some people find it muddies a clean apple smoke.

Metal lids clean completely. Nothing is absorbed, so the fifth apple smoke tastes like the first, and they tolerate a careless torch better. They read as equipment rather than as an object, which on a bar cart matters.

Either works. If you intend to use several different woods and care about keeping them distinct, metal is the more honest choice. If the lid is going to sit out on display, wood usually wins.

1. A pinch of chips, not a spoonful. More chips means more smoke and less control, and over-smoking is not recoverable.
2. Toast until they smolder, then stop. You want a steady thread of smoke, not flame. If they catch fire, blow them out and start again.
3. Seat the lid and leave it 30 to 45 seconds. Longer is rarely better.
4. Lift the lid away from the drinker. A face full of concentrated smoke is nobody's idea of a good serve.
5. Serve immediately. Smoke keeps being absorbed while the drink sits, so a drink that was right when you smoked it can be over-smoked five minutes later.
6. Clear the screen while it is warm. Spent chips lift off easily warm and weld themselves on cold.

The full sequence for the canonical application is in how to smoke an old fashioned.