6 best cocktail shakers to inspire your inner mixologist

Best: Overall

• Material: Tin
• Dishwasher safe: Yes

Cocktail-making should be about having fun, and that’s one reason we love this Boston-style shaker. It comes with real personality, via an engraved tropical exterior of flip flops, palm trees and jumping dolphins. And somehow, it doesn’t feel too kitsch; viewed from afar this shaker simply looks like a gorgeously designed bit of barware that’s far more sophisticated than its bargainous £20 price tag would have you believe.

It works a treat, too – not unexpectedly, given it’s been created by champion flair bartender Tom Dyer. The tin-on-tin design (as opposed to the classic Boston tin and glass style) cools your cocktail quick-smart – one of the benefits of an all-metallic shaker. It’s also light, which is handy for cocktail enthusiasts who don’t boast Joe Wicks-grade upper-body strength. Simple and speedy to clean, and durable, it’ll suit a Friday night shaking session with friends as much as Tuesday night gimlet hour.

Best: For swanky retro pours

• Material: Stainless steel
• Dishwasher safe: Yes

Style and function in perfect harmony. This cobbler from Nick Munro, inspired by the stylings of the 1930s, looks beautiful, but unlike so many designer cocktail shakers, it’s not purely ornamental. The mirrored 18/10 stainless steel exterior is a shiny step up from run-of-the-mill shakers, and even after multiple uses ours polished up good as new after a wipe with a soft cloth.

It works well, too. Nick Munro designs barware for hospitality – you’ll find the kit at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and The Wolseley – and the products pay attention to the details. The rubber ring around the lid not only gives a tight seal – avoiding spills and letting you pour confidently with a single hand – but also prevents the shaker halves from freezing shut (usually a bugbear with cobblers). Meanwhile, the Christmas cracker-shape provides grippy end points that don’t get cold as you mix, sparing you from the dreaded frozen-hand feeling that typically accompanies metallic shakers.

Keep in mind that this one is on the smaller size – just 450ml – so it’s best suited to evenings where you’re sticking to just one or two perfect pours. Make ours a vesper...

Best: For design geeks

• Material: Crystalline glass and metal top
• Dishwasher safe: No

What a looker! Topped with a shiny brass cap, and sporting a lead-free crystalline glass base, this sleek Boston-style cocktail shaker is the very definition of a bar cart centrepiece. It looked so picture-perfect straight from the box that we were almost afraid to use it.

But use it we did, and we found it to be practical as well as stylish. The copper top cools down almost immediately following contact with ice, and our shaking session led to a perfectly chilled, frothy espresso martini. The clear base (which is dishwasher safe) is a smidge on the heavy side, but it let us get a good look at what was happening as we mixed our drink.

For all its benefits, keep in mind that this is a cocktail shaker designed for thoughtful, measured shake-ups, not a workhorse for turning out margaritas at 2am on a Friday night. The glass, while durable, is obviously breakable, and the copper needs real care – it’s recommended that you dry it directly after use to keep it looking dashing.

Best: Budget cocktail shaker

• Material: Brushed steel
• Dishwasher safe: No

It doesn’t get much more classic than this. With its brushed metallic surface and typical three-piece cobbler design, this shaker might not have the visual bells and whistles of some of the others on this list, but the cleverness is in its simplicity. It gets the job done, with a firm-fitting three-piece lid that doesn’t slip open, even with a precarious one-handed pour.

And it does pour well, through multiple holes and a fairly wide (for a cobbler) in-built strainer. It’s one of the easiest cobblers here to clean, too, partly thanks to the gently sloping – rather than severely inverted – spout.

If we had a criticism, it’s the age-old one for classic steel-on-steel cobbler shakers: when it’s very cold, the lid can sometimes clamp on and prove tricky to budge. But it’s a rather minor complaint for a shaker under £10. If you’re only making cocktails now and then, it’s hard to find fault here.

Best: For mojito maniacs

• Material: Glass, Metal and Wood
• Dishwasher safe: Yes

While we’ve largely focused on solo cocktail shakers here, rather than cocktail-making sets, we’ve made an exception with this one – it’s pretty clever. Built from a jam jar base, with a screw-on strainer lid, and packed with a measuring glass and muddler, it’s effectively everything you need to make stirred cocktails – think mojitos, old fashioned’s and caipirinhas – as well as shaken ones.

The wide, clear base not only holds a fair bit (800ml), but it lets you see everything as it sloshes around, so you know when your drink is properly mixed. The lid, given it’s screwed on tight, is foolproof too. Basically, this is a great choice for cocktail novices who want something that does it all, or for enthusiasts who want a fun, backup mixer to stash away in a picnic basket or beach hut.

Our only criticism? The pouring process, given it’s coming from a big, kinda clunky jam jar, is a little less romantic than with some other models. Fine if you’re making fun and fruity tropical concoctions; less on-point for glam 007-style martini evenings.

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Best: For cocktail parties

• Material: Mother of pearl, stainless steel
• Dishwasher safe: No

At a luxuriously roomy 950ml, this mega-sized cobbler shaker is great for a crowd – by whipping up several cocktails in one go, more of your time can be spent socialising and less playing bartender. And yet, despite its towering stature, it maintains a classy air, with a mother of pearl inlay collar and polished stainless steel finish.

The downside to the spacious interior: you will need a fair bit of ice to operate this thing. Under-fill and you risk cube breakage when shaking, which will unpleasantly dilute drinks as well as clog up the filter when you start straining. But consider this; while it seems like a lot of ice to use for just a couple of drinks, it’s amazingly efficient if you’re making lots.

One last note: keep a firm grip on the cap. When left to its own devices we found ours had a tendency to pop off during, and even after, shaking.