Making Classic Cocktails
Learn the essential cocktail recipes, balance formulas, and unspoken bar standards every bartender uses. Build confidence behind any bar by mixing classics cleanly, measuring accurately, and presenting drinks with professional polish.
Like Duolingo, but for Making Classic Cocktails. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
22 levels across 3 sections, about 44 minutes end to end, roughly 9 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Pouring Your First Classics, Long Drinks and Crowd Favorites, and Restaurant Standards and Service Polish. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Making Classic Cocktails
- The sour formula uses 2 parts base spirit, 1 part sour citrus, and 1 part sweet syrup
- Daiquiris, Margaritas, and Gimlets all share this underlying sour structure
- Swapping the base spirit creates entirely different classic drinks on the same ratio
- Cocktails with citrus juice, dairy, or egg must be shaken to blend different densities and introduce air
- Stirring is reserved for drinks made purely of clear spirits and liqueurs
- Shaking quickly emulsifies and creates a frothy, chilled texture in sour and cream drinks
- Bottled juice contains chemical preservatives that leave an artificial, sulfurous aftertaste
- Fresh citrus provides bright aromatic oils from the peel that evaporate during commercial pasteurization
- A sour cocktail depends on fresh, vibrant acidity to properly balance the sweet syrup and harsh alcohol
- Granulated sugar cannot dissolve easily in ice-cold liquids, leaving a gritty sludge at the bottom of the shaker
- Pre-dissolving equal parts sugar in water creates simple syrup that integrates instantly into cold drinks
- Using simple syrup ensures consistent sweetness throughout every sip
- Vigorous shaking breaks ice into tiny shards that escape the standard shaker strainer
- Floating ice chips melt quickly in an un-iced drink, diluting it and disrupting the silky mouthfeel
- A fine mesh strainer catches micro-shards while letting the smooth, aerated liquid pass through
- Drinks made entirely of spirits and liqueurs should be stirred to stay crystal clear and silky smooth
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Making Classic Cocktails the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What is the classic sour formula ratio for building a drink?
Get it right to open this lesson and 21 more in the app.
Where Making Classic Cocktails takes you
- 1
Pouring Your First Classics
- The Sour Formula and Shaken Drinks
- Stirred, Spirit-Forward Drinks
- 2
Long Drinks and Crowd Favorites
- Tall Drinks and Carbonation
- Modern Standards and Emulsions
- 3
Restaurant Standards and Service Polish
- Bar Station Safety and Measuring
- Glassware Selection and Garnishing
- Flavor Balancing and Ingredient Care
3 sections · 7 units · 22 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
You pick the voice
Making Classic Cocktails is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Making Classic Cocktails today.
Download Tomo, search Making Classic Cocktails, and play your first lesson in under a minute.