Decoding Your Drink

Not since Starbucks did an overhaul on the world’s coffee lexicon has ordering a drink been such an ordeal. While those in favor of something stronger than espresso may have traded in pseudo-Italian sizing for words like muddled, fizzed, and extra dirty, the terminology behind the world’s better drinks can be downright dumbfounding. We’re here to help you decode.

Muddled You’ll often hear this term paired with “blackberry mojito” or “the bartenders here all wear vests,” but it’s also the mark of a delicious and well-blended cocktail. To muddle means to combine and is, in bar parlance, most often the result of cocktail ingredients being smashed together with a wooden or metal tool. The result is a flavorful drink with no chewing required.

Dry While it may seem like one of the most basic cocktail concepts, the idea of a “dry” drink is a whole lot wetter than your normal beverage. What makes a drink “dry”—and you inebriated— is the addition of vermouth.

Neat To be fair, this one may seem fairly self-explanatory until the “neatness” in your evening’s beverages gets you sloppy. In layman’s terms, a drink served neat means there’s no buffer, like water, mixer, or ice, to calm the raging fury that follows a sip of straight liquor.

Fizz Made with “the other bubbly” (or straight-up seltzer, as most of us call it), a Fizz is most often a sugar-sweetened cocktail made sparkling with a dash of fizzy water.