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The six templates

8 minUpdated 2026-08-02

Stop memorising drinks

Thirty drinks is a lot to hold. Six patterns is not. Almost every cocktail you will be asked for is one of six shapes with different bottles in it, and once you can see the shape, you can build drinks you have never made and get them right.

This is the single highest-leverage lesson in the module. Everything after it is filling in names.

Template 1 — The highball

Spirit + a carbonated or juice mixer, built in the glass over ice.

Spec: 1.5–2 oz spirit, top with mixer, garnish. Never shaken. Never strained.

Method: ice the glass first, pour the spirit, top with the mixer, one gentle lift with the bar spoon if it needs mixing at all, garnish.

This is vodka soda, gin and tonic, rum and Coke, whiskey ginger, screwdriver, tequila soda, vodka cranberry, Jack and Coke, and about forty other names that are all the same drink. Learn one, you have them all.

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