Finishing Touches

Why bother

You could stop after straining. But a garnish adds color, aroma, and a flavor accent that ties the whole thing together, and it's the last piece of the puzzle.

You don't need to carve dolphins out of bananas or set a rum-soaked lime alight. Knowing how to cut a peel so you get bright zest and none of the bitter pith, or how to notch a wedge so a guest can squeeze it easily, is enough. Done right, the garnish turns mixing into a bit of theater and helps everything else shine.

Citrus

Wash and dry the fruit thoroughly first, and cut citrus garnishes as close to serving as you can so they don't dry out.

For a standard strip of zest, run a freshly sharpened paring knife between zest and white pith, twisting the fruit under moderate pressure. For a wider strip, use a vegetable peeler, then hold it over the drink and twist into a tight spiral to express the oils. Discard it or drop it in.

For a wedge: trim a quarter inch off each end, halve lengthwise, set a half cut-side down, and slice at an angle lengthwise. Cut a slit in the middle so it rides the rim. For a wheel: halve crosswise, cut parallel about an eighth to a quarter inch up, then slit from edge to center.

Tools worth owning

A paring knife, vegetable peeler, box grater, and microplane will carry you a long way. Beyond those, three more are worth having. A channel knife, whose U-shaped blade cuts long elegant strips of zest. A pronged-tip bar knife, thin enough for elaborate cuts and handy for spearing cherries and olives. And a Y-shaped garnish peeler, which looks like a safety razor and handles nearly anything.

Herbs, olives, cherries

Herbs need no tools. Lay the sprig in one palm and smack it with the other before dropping it in, which wakes up the essential oils, which is the entire reason it's there.

Olives traditionally come three to a skewer: one after the first sip, two after the last. One dropped in the glass is fine too. Pimento is the classic stuffing, but garlic, almonds, blue cheese, jalapeño, and anchovy all work.

And when a recipe calls for a maraschino cherry, avoid the fluorescent supermarket version. Luxardo cherries are made from sour marasca cherries grown in the sandy soil of Croatia's Dalmatian range and preserved in nothing but sugar and their own juice. Deep red verging on purple, with an almond-toned richness. They cost more and they're worth it.