What's The Point Of Those Tiny Cocktail Straws?

You're sitting at the bar at the end of a long and busy night, ready to wash the day's happenings away with the drink in your hand. The absolute last thing you want to worry about is how to properly drink the darn thing. But it's awfully hard to order a martini like you know what you're doing when those pesky, short straws are served with them. Their presence taunts you as you sip on just about any cocktail, begging the mysterious question of just what exactly you do with them.

And the answer is: whatever you want. These seemingly useless cocktail straws can serve a number of purposes, from helping you properly stir your beverage to effortlessly making sure you pace yourself. Depending on your drink of choice for the night, you can decide what function you want your straw to serve. After all, it's added to glasses as a tool for your convenience. Heck, you can even throw it away if that's what gives you a better drinking experience.

These mini straws can be used first and foremost to stir your drink. Beware, though — whether cocktails are better shaken or stirred is contingent on your specific drink's type of ingredients. As a general rule of thumb, shake drinks like margaritas and daiquiris when they're composed of non-alcoholic elements like dairy, eggs, citrus, and other cloudy-colored things.

On the other hand, stirring is optimal for cocktails that are made only with other liquors, such as a Negroni or Manhattan. The similarly clear-colored liquids used to create these don't require as vigorous of mixing to keep a well-integrated, aesthetic look. That makes that flimsy straw the perfect tool for gently combining the flavors together without overdoing it, too. It'll also help the alcohol to mix with the ice in a way that doesn't water down your drink too quickly (using clear ice helps with this too). Lightly stirring with a straw even prevents too much aeration from occurring, which will keep the beverage's texture as smooth and silky as possible.

With the many liquors that come together to form your favorite stirred drinks, you can bet it'll taste stronger, and in turn, probably hit you harder, too. That's not a bad thing, but it's always nice to enjoy your drink without having to call it quits too early into the night. Think of cocktail straws as your little hack to do this. It's no doubt a bit annoying how narrow their openings are, but this can ensure you don't drink too much of your beverage all at once. It's not only unconsciously ensuring you pace yourself more; it's also giving you more time to savor what you paid and came for.

That's not the only way cocktail straws can keep you safe. As previously mentioned, alcoholic beverages will usually contain ice. We're sure you knew that, though. Few people haven't experienced the annoyance of throwing your head back to get a gulp, only to be smashed in the nose with ice. Not a problem if you have a straw. Cocktail straws are usually too slim to allow any form of ice through, whether it's crushed or cubed. They help to make sure you'll only get sips of the good stuff.