Cocktail shakers usually are easy to use. Especially Boston Shakers and Tin-Tin Shakers because they only have two pieces. However, separating a cocktail shaker can be tricky.Â
It might happen from time to time that your shaker is stuck, and you need to figure out how to open it. I know how frustrating the situation is, sometimes even awkward when you plan to play it cool in front of your friends.
But honestly, it is just business as usual when shaking cocktails, and it happens to the best.
So let's see how you can open your shaker, why this actually happens, and what you can do to prevent your shaker cups from getting stuck in the first place.
If you close your shaker correctly, it will be a lot easier to open it again after shaking your cocktail.
First, put the large shaker cup on the table. Fill it with ice and then your ingredients. Then add the smaller shaker tin or cup on top. Make sure that both form a straight line on one side (see picture).
Once your shaker cups are in place, give the upper cup a decent nudge to vacuum-seal your shaker. Now you're good to go and can shake your cocktail.
A Boston shaker consists of a tin shaker cup and a shaker glass. I've seen the glass crack more than once when someone tried to open it with too much force. So make sure to handle your shaker carefully when preparing your cocktail creations.
In the following, I'll assume you're right-handed. If you are left-handed, do everything the other way around:
Put the shaker on a table, tin shaker down. Hold the tin shaker part in your left hand and gently tap the shaker with the heel of your right hand. You want to aim for the area where the glass meets the metal to break the vacuum seal.
Turn the shaker so that the "line" faces you, then tap the side with the heel of your hand. That means, at a 90-degree angle to the position of said line.
If the shaker was closed accurately, forming a straight line from metal to the glass (see section above), opening it is relatively easy now.
If you haven't closed the shaker correctly, it will be more difficult to open it. In this case, try rotating the shaker a bit with every tap to find the spot where you can break the vacuum seal.
For a metal shaker, also called Tin-Tin shaker, it's the same procedure as for a Boston Shaker and the same technique described above applies.
Here you have the advantage that you do not need to be as careful because it's almost impossible to break a metal shaker. That, in turn, helps to break the seal faster.
On the downside, metal shakers tend to get stuck more often than Boston shakers. You want to know why? Continue reading for the answer.
There is more than one reason why a shaker gets stuck.
One might be the use of sticky ingredients in your cocktail mixture that "glue" the shaker together. It's also possible that you closed it inaccurately or used too much force to seal it.
Yet, in most cases, the reason is the ice: To shake your cocktail, you put plenty of ice in your cocktail shaker.
The metal, usually stainless steel, is a super good conductor. That means frost on the outside of your shaker tins. When stainless steel gets cold, it contracts, and you end up with a stuck cocktail shaker.
You see, there's no malpractice on your end. It's simple physics that leads to stuck cocktail shakers.
As mentioned, the amount of ice used in a cocktail shaker and the fact that stainless steel is such a good conductor lead to two things.
First, the chilled inside of the shaker causes the air pressure to go down. That in combination with some more complex reactions leads to a vacuum seal of your cocktail shaker.
Second, while shaking your cocktail, the outside of the shaker gets so cold that it contracts and further tightens the seal. Usually, around 14 pounds of force are needed to break it.
But that's only in an ideal world. In reality, there may be cases where you need a lot more force to open a shaker.
Now you know how to open a stuck cocktail shaker, but what to do if nothing helps?
If you still can't open your shaker and there's nobody there to help, there's one more thing you can do. Unfortunately, it means the cocktail you or your guests are looking forward to so much is gone:
Wait until the ice melts and the temperature of your shaker is back to normal, then it should be easy to open. -The drink is lost, but you don't need to worry about your shaker.