Take It From an NYC Bartender, These Cocktail Kits Will Make You the Life of the Party

1 week ago 3

Pros

Simple subscription format
Fresh, bespoke ingredients
Excellent value
Flexible monthly box options
Easy instructions to follow
How-to videos on website
Recyclable materials

Cons

Needs more attention paid to ice

I bartended for a decade in the kind of Manhattan restaurants where every cocktail on the list had some sort of bespoke ingredient. I have a bar cart at home that has a couple dozen spirits and liqueurs and no less than six types of bitters.

That being said, if I were to have you over this minute, I could make you…a margarita? Maybe? (I think there's some lime juice in the freezer...) Definitely a Manhattan -- no wait, how old is this Vermouth? Fine, a martini, but it will be extremely dry and garnished with the suspicious olives hiding in the back of the fridge.

Making or drinking cocktails at home will never be quite the same as making or drinking cocktails at a restaurant or bar, where volume and scalability play a big part in the sheer variety of ingredients that are available. Enter Shaker and Spoon, a monthly cocktail subscription kit that delivers the kind of ingredients and instructions to your door that actually does have the possibility of turning your home bar into something worth staying home for.

Here's everything you need to know about Shaker and Spoon to shake or stir you into subscribing. (Looking for more monthly food and drink clubs for a person on your nice list? Here are the best food and drink subscriptions to gift this holiday and the best meal delivery services to keep them well fed.)

Snapshot of Shaker and Spoon

Service: Monthly cocktail kit subscription box. Cocktail kits can also be purchased as individual boxes without a subscription. Individual ingredients and barware are available for sale as well.
Products: Each box includes various ingredients for making three different cocktails based on the same base spirit (not included).
Availability: Shaker and Spoon can ship to all 50 States, plus US Territories and US military bases abroad. No alcohol is included in the shipment, so an adult signature is not needed for delivery.
Cost: Monthly subscription boxes cost between $50 and $59, depending on how long you commit to up front. Shipping costs $8 per month in addition to the subscription cost. Free boxes can be earned by making referrals.

What is Shaker and Spoon?

Shaker and Spoon is a Brooklyn-based cocktail kit subscription service that aims to offer home bartenders the ability to make expert-level cocktails like those you'd find at a cocktail bar, without having to buy or make esoteric ingredients you might only need an ounce or two of. Subscription boxes include ingredients crafted by professionals such as syrups, shrubs and cordials, as well as craft sodas, bitters, mixers and garnishes. Recipes for the cocktail kit boxes are crafted by renowned bartenders and cocktail experts, bringing a taste of the world's best cocktail bars right to where you are.

How does it work?

assorted cocktail ingredients arranged in box

Each month's Shaker and Spoon subscription box has a unique theme, with three cocktails based around a single base spirit. The box contains every ingredient needed to make the three cocktails, plus recipes and instruction guidance, minus the base spirit itself. There is enough of every ingredient to make four of each of the cocktails, for a total of 12 cocktails each month. (That's about as much as a standard 750ml spirit bottle holds as well, presuming a 2-ounce portion for most cocktails.) The only additional ingredients not included in certain boxes may be standard kitchen fare such as egg whites, which are challenging to ship fresh.

Subscribers will receive an email prior to delivery outlining that month's subscription box, letting them know what tools will be needed, and giving recommendations for specific spirits to consider. Typical barware can be purchased on Shaker and Spoon's website, but the website also offers workarounds for those who don't own typical bartending tools. (Cocktails can be built and shaken in a mason jar with a tight-fitting lid, and any vessel that measures liquid volume can be used to portion ingredients.)

Boxes typically include at least one shaken and one stirred cocktail. Some boxes may also have recipes with a greater degree of difficulty, such as a smoked cocktail or one made with egg whites that may require a blender (or a hell of a long shake.) Some examples of recent boxes are Mezcalloween, Rum-Believeable and New Frontiers -- a box celebrating the emerging category of American Whiskey that doesn't fall neatly into bourbon, rye or Tennessee whiskey categories.

If you're not interested in a particular month's box, subscribers can opt out for a month, can gift their box to someone else or can swap for a different box, depending on what's still in stock from previous months. Boxes may also be purchased individually without subscribing.

irish whiskey cocktails ingredients and equipment

Creative, easy to make cocktails

I tested three of Shaker and Spoon's subscription kits: Totally Tequila, Gin Ne Sais Quoi, and The Ballad of Irish Whiskey. (I give them high marks for wordplay throughout. All of the cocktails have names that I wouldn't cringe to order out loud.) There wasn't a dud in the bunch -- all nine cocktails were ones I would have ordered, given placement on a bar menu, and would have been happy to order and drink again.

Recipes were generally simple, which is important for a subscription kit, in order to make the consumer feel successful. Each of the boxes I tested included a fairly straightforward shaken and an equally straightforward stirred cocktail. The third was a mixed bag, sometimes it was just another variant on a shaken or stirred process, but sometimes involved smoking a glass, producing crushed ice or whipping out the blender. Any potentially unfamiliar terms were immediately and simply defined: whip shake, for example, involves a single ice cube "shaken vigorously until you can no longer hear the ice."

Beyond its simplicity, the real benefit of Shaker and Spoon, in my opinion, is in its original, homemade ingredients. Boxes also include other packaged ingredients like sodas, all of which are sourced from excellent brands, but I sampled each of the bespoke ingredients themselves, and this is where home bartending has gotten a real leg up by what Shaker and Spoon is offering. There's a thoughtful, flavor-forward, and interesting approach to ingredients that comes with the experience of crafting cocktails professionally, in a space that has the kind of access and facilities that bars and restaurants do: jasmine-oolong tea syrup, mandarin-peppercorn cordial, rosemary-beet shrub, cranberry walnut bitters, etc. You really will be having world class cocktails at home.

More tips on ice would be nice

rayo de jalisco cocktail from totally tequila box

The only room for improvement in what Shaker and Spoon offers, for my taste, is more attention paid to ice in its materials, particularly in accounting for a tremendous variability on what consumers may be using. On one hand, I presume that the service relies on the assumption that many subscribers are using ice from ice cube trays, or from an automatic machine on their refrigerator, but there's still a wide range there. The recipes allow for visual cues, like "shake until ice-cold and shows frost on the outside," but also suggest timings such as "15-30 seconds." This is a pretty big variation of time, and could actually make the difference between a balanced cocktail or a watered-down one, especially if users are using bagged ice for the occasion.

That said, I found the cocktails so phenomenal, (using tray ice even) that I think the average consumer may not notice much. Or they will learn along the way and adjust accordingly.

Shaker and Spoon subscription and pricing

The standard price for a Shaker and Spoon box is $59, plus $8 for shipping, if paid monthly as a subscription, or to just buy individually. The price per box decreases the more you prepay up front. A three-month prepaid cost is $169, or $56 per box, a six-month prepaid cost is $319, or $53 per box, and a 12-month prepaid cost is $599, or $50 per box.

Even at the monthly level, $59 is a tremendous value. Factoring in the cost of shipping, and the spirit bottle that you must purchase yourself, (let's say $40 on average) that's bringing the cost of each cocktail to less than $9. (Even less than that, if you are choosing a cheaper spirit, and many good options are available in myriad categories for less than $40.) Admittedly, I have a New York-blind that causes me to believe that most cocktails of this level of quality would cost at least $20, but still, in pretty much every market, an interesting $9 cocktail is a good deal.

Who is Shaker and Spoon good for?

Shaker and Spoon is especially good for those who are not only interested in drinking great cocktails -- though that's enough of a requirement for entry -- but want to learn about cocktails. If you're doing this month in and month out, you're going to pick up some tricks of the trade, and your cocktail game is going to improve, even if you're just building drinks between boxes with whatever you've got on hand.

At $59 per box, it's also a great gift option, without having to sign someone up for a whole subscription process.

Who is Shaker and Spoon not good for?

If you're looking more for nonalcoholic cocktails, this isn't the best fit. The bespoke shrubs, cordials, and syrups can make for interesting concoctions, however, and there is occasional verbiage in the materials about adjusting for a nonalcoholic option. For a mixed household, where one person is seeking alcoholic cocktails and another seeking nonalcoholic, it would totally work, but for a fully nonalcoholic program, I would look elsewhere.

Final verdict on Shaker and Spoon cocktail subscription

Honestly, if you love cocktails and aspire to make them at home, don't hesitate. This is a thoughtful, aptly priced and well-executed subscription service, delivering the opportunity for world-class cocktails to your doorstep.

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