How to Juice Fresh Citrus for Cocktails

Fresh citrus juice gives cocktails their brightness and balances sweetness and alcohol. Bottled juice is cooked or preserved, so it tastes flat or bitter by comparison. If a recipe calls for lemon, lime or grapefruit juice, squeezing it fresh is the easiest way to make your drinks taste professional.

What You Need

• Fresh limes, lemons or grapefruits (firm, heavy for their size, with thin shiny skin)

• A sharp knife and cutting board

• A handheld citrus press (hinged squeezer) or a reamer

• A fine mesh strainer

• A jigger or measuring cup with oz and ml markings

• A clean glass jar or squeeze bottle with a lid

Typical yields: 1 lime gives about 0.75–1 oz (22–30 ml), 1 lemon about 1–1.5 oz (30–45 ml), 1 grapefruit about 4–6 oz (120–180 ml).

Step by Step

1. Let the fruit come to room temperature, or microwave it for 10 seconds. Warm citrus gives noticeably more juice.

2. Roll each fruit on the cutting board for 5 seconds, pressing firmly with your palm to break the inner cells.

3. Cut the fruit in half across the middle (through the "equator"), not end to end.

4. Place a half in the press with the cut side facing down toward the holes. This feels backwards, but it is correct.

5. Squeeze the handles firmly and steadily in one motion until the peel turns inside out. For grapefruit, twist the half on a reamer instead.

6. Pour the juice through the fine mesh strainer to remove seeds and large pulp.

7. Measure what you need with a jigger. Most sours use 0.75–1 oz (22–30 ml) per drink.

8. Store any extra juice in a sealed jar in the fridge right away.

Tips From the Bar

• Do not over-squeeze or scrape the white pith. It adds bitterness to the juice.

• Juice limes and lemons the same day you use them. Lime juice is often best 1–4 hours after squeezing, and it tastes dull after about a day.

• Taste your juice before you mix. Some limes are much more sour than others, and you may need to adjust the syrup by 0.25 oz (8 ml).

• Before juicing, peel off any strips you need for garnish. It is much harder to peel a squeezed half.

• Fruit that feels hard and light usually has little juice. Pick heavy, slightly soft fruit.

Alternatives

• No citrus press: Squeeze halves by hand over a strainer, using a fork pressed into the flesh and twisted to release more juice.

• No strainer: Squeeze through your cupped fingers, which catch most of the seeds, or use a tea strainer.

• No fresh limes: Use fresh lemon at the same amount. The drink will taste slightly softer and less sharp, which works well in most sours.

• No fresh lemons: Use fresh lime at the same amount, and consider adding an extra 0.25 oz (8 ml) of syrup, since lime is a little more tart.

• No fresh grapefruit: Use a good refrigerated not-from-concentrate juice at the same amount, plus a squeeze of fresh lime (about 0.25 oz / 8 ml) to bring back brightness.

• Only bottled lemon or lime juice: Use about 75% of the amount the recipe asks for, since it tastes harsher, and add a strip of fresh peel to the shaker for aroma.

How Long It Keeps

• Lime and lemon juice: best the same day; acceptable for up to 24 hours in the fridge.

• Grapefruit and orange juice: up to 2–3 days in a sealed container in the fridge.

• Freezing: pour juice into ice cube trays (each cube is about 1 oz / 30 ml) and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge. Great for punches and batches.

Where You'll Use This

Daiquiri, Margarita, Whiskey Sour, Mojito, Tom Collins, Paloma, Gimlet, Cosmopolitan

Practice this technique inside the CocktailZ University courses.