How to Mix Basic Highball Drinks

Joe Trujillo: Hi, I am Joe Trujillo of the Hospitality Training Institute and I am here to show you how to setup your home bar for a holiday party. Right now, I want to be going over your basic Highball drinks. Done with a highball drink, freak you out. All it is is really a qualified version of the rocks drinks, just with a few more ingredients. I will be going over three basic Highball drinks.

First up is your Cosmopolitan. What you'll need for this is your mixing tin, a cocktail glass, Vodka, Triple Sec, and Cranberry juice. Take your mixing tin and fill it up with ice. As I said before, ice is your best friend. You can never have too much in the glass. The point of it is it chills the liquor down so that they will not taste any impurities in it. Put your standard cocktail, I would recommend putting anywhere from an ounce to an ounce and a half of liquor in but it's up to you depending on the strength and preference of the drink. So about an ounce and a half of liquor, about three quarters of an ounce of Triple Sec, and a light splash of Cranberry juice. Put your cap back on your martini shaker, shake, five to eight shakes, and then strain. If you measure Cosmopolitan correctly, it should be a light pink. It should not be red. As I said before, it's splash of Cranberry juice. There you have it, Vodka, Triple Sec, Cranberry juice; simple Cosmopolitan Next up is your Tequila Sunrise. This time around you are going be using your mixing tin, a highball glass, orange juice, grenadine, and of course, tequila. First step, fill your highball glass up to the brim with ice, fill it with about one quarter, or a quarter and an ounce of tequila, fill the rest of the glass up with orange juice, and then top it up with some grenadine. You can leave it as it is and let it cascade down or you can roll the drink as well. Stir with the straw and there you have a Tequila Sunrise.

And following, I am going to show you how to make a Long Island Iced Tea. For this, you need a mixing tin, highball glass, and then pretty much all of your liquors, Vodka, Gin, Rum, Tequila, and Triple Sec. In addition to these, you will also need sour mix and Coke. This is why this is one of your important drinks. I recommend it starting of the night but not making a nice consistent story of this as it does have a lot of alcohol. That being said, how to make it? Take a highball glass, fill it up to the brim with ice. Now for this, you are going to want to be actually some more conservative on your pours. Probably about a quarter of an ounce for each bottle of liquor. As you go no more than the third up in the highball glass that you are using. So Vodka, Gin, Rum, Tequila, and Triple Sec and again it should be about a third up in the glass; anything over that you have a pretty strong drink. You want to top the rest of the drink up with your sour mix and then put a splash of Coke on top. You can serve your drink as it is. However, it's not a true Iced Tea if you don't roll it. Use a straw, you can serve it with a lemon in or any other garnish that you wish. There you have it, a Long Island Iced Tea.

That's your basic highball selection, they are pretty easy yo make. Next I'll be going over choosing and making specialty drinks for your holiday party.