SPEEDPOUR
How To Alcohol
You do not need years of bartending experience to know what you like. You just need a little vocabulary and a few basic ideas. Poke around and click anything you want; everything here is interactive.
The types of alcohol
All alcohol starts the same way: yeast breaks down sugar. Where it stops is what makes the category.
Fermented, then distilled
After fermentation the liquid is heated so the alcohol evaporates first, then cooled back to liquid. That concentrates the alcohol, which is why spirits hit harder.
Roughly where it sits
Why they all taste so different
Same process — fermentation, then distillation. What changes the flavor is what they start with. Flip a card.
Learning to taste, not just order
If your drinking history is mostly a go-to order, you know what you like to order more than what you like to taste. Six words fix that.
The sugar-forward end of things.
Take your usual apart
A margarita is tequila, lime, and orange liqueur. If you like it — which part is it?
Build, shake, stir
Anything with juice, dairy, egg white, or texture that needs to combine fully and get cold fast.
Margarita, Daiquiri, Whiskey Sour.
Rule of thumb: if a drink is clear and entirely alcohol, stir it. If it has juice or texture, shake it.
Quick check · 1 of 5
How do you make a Negroni?
Glassware
Every shape exists for a reason, not tradition.
Rocks glass
Short, heavy-bottomed tumbler. Built or strained over ice.
Rocks glass
Short and wide, built for spirits over ice or simple drinks built right in the glass.
Coupe glass
Shallow, round-bowled stem glass. For drinks served up, no ice.
Coupe glass
Stemmed on purpose, so your hand never touches the bowl and warms a drink served without ice.
Highball glass
Tall straight-sided glass for spirit-plus-mixer drinks over ice.
Highball glass
Tall, giving carbonated or mixer-heavy drinks the room they need to stay lively.
Wine glass
Big bowl for spritzes and low-ABV highballs.
Wine glass
A wide bowl concentrates aroma toward your nose — a huge part of how wine actually gets tasted.
Ice is an ingredient
Ice isn't just cold, it's dilution — it softens the alcohol and rounds out flavor as it melts. Drag the slider to watch a drink change over ten minutes.
First sip: full strength, nothing has melted yet.
Shaking and stirring do the same thing before the drink ever reaches your glass — shaking aggressively, so it lands colder, lighter and slightly more diluted; stirring gently, so it stays silky and more concentrated.
Basic measurements
You don't need to memorize recipes, just the logic. A standard pour is roughly 1.5 oz of spirit, about 44 ml. Most cocktails balance three things — play with them.
Balanced. Roughly the classic sour shape: strong, sour, sweet.
Ratios matter more than hitting an exact number. If a drink tastes off, one of these three is out of balance — not your measuring.
Simple syrup, demerara & saline solution
- How it's made
- Equal parts white sugar and water, heated until dissolved.
- What it tastes like
- Neutral — adds sweetness without changing the drink's flavor.
- When to reach for it
- The default in a Daiquiri, Whiskey Sour, or Mojito.
If a recipe just says simple syrup, that's the safe default. Swapping in demerara is a deliberate choice you make once you know you like that direction, not a starting point.
The two divisive ones: Campari & absinthe
Every other ingredient is a matter of degree. These two split a room, which is why SPEEDPOUR stops and asks you about them before it pours. Here's what they actually taste like.
The flavor map
Every cocktail in our library plotted on two axes: sweet/smooth to bitter/dry across, citrus/refreshing to spiritous/forward up and down. Filter by base spirit, zoom in, and tap a dot to see the full recipe.
Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag to pan · tap a dot for the recipe
The bigger idea
Years of ordering the same drink teaches you what you like to order, not necessarily what you like to taste. Once you can name what's actually happening in your go-to: sweet, sour, bitter, fruity, forward, spiced, then you can start making real choices instead of defaulting to the familiar.