How to Make a Whiskey Sour: The Step-by-Step Method

A Whiskey Sour is three ingredients and a shake, and the ones made at home still go wrong in the same few ways: bottled juice, too much sugar, a lazy shake, an egg white that never foamed. None of that is the recipe's fault. It is method, and the method takes about three minutes once you know it.

This is the beginner's page. It walks RyeCentral's classic rye build — 2 oz rye, ¾ oz fresh lemon, ¾ oz simple syrup — from a bare counter to a finished glass, both ways: the clear, no-egg classic and the egg-white version many bars call a Boston Sour. The spec and its bottle picks live in the rye Whiskey Sour recipe; the deeper technique is in how to shake a Whiskey Sour.

The Short Version

Chill a glass. Pour 2 oz rye, ¾ oz fresh lemon juice and ¾ oz simple syrup into a shaker, fill it with ice and shake hard until the outside frosts. Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass, or fine strain into a chilled coupe, and garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry. That is the whole drink. With egg white, add ½ oz, shake once without ice first, serve it up and dash Angostura on the foam.

What You Need

Glass choices are in best Whiskey Sour glass; shakers, jiggers and strainers are in the shop; the workarounds are in Whiskey Sour without a shaker.

The Six Steps: the No-Egg Classic

1. Chill the glass. For an up serve, put a coupe in the freezer for five to ten minutes or fill it with ice and water while you work. For a rocks serve, have the glass and fresh ice ready — you strain onto new ice, not the ice you shook with.
2. Juice the lemon. Every published spec calls for fresh juice. America's Test Kitchen found juice rested about four hours in the fridge was preferred to just-squeezed, but past six hours or so bitterness takes over — so juice the same day. More in the fresh lemon juice guide.
3. Measure 2 : ¾ : ¾. Pour 2 oz rye, ¾ oz lemon juice and ¾ oz simple syrup into the shaker. Measure all three; a sour lives or dies on that balance. If your syrup is rich 2:1, use ½ oz — Difford's conversion is 20 ml of 2:1 for 30 ml of 1:1. When to move off the ratio is in Whiskey Sour ratios; the syrups are in the syrup guide.
4. Fill with ice and shake hard. Fill the shaker two-thirds with ice straight from the freezer, seal it, and shake hard — a sour is a drink where effort shows. Stop when the tin is frosted and painful to hold; the Tales of the Cocktail spec gives 10 to 15 seconds with ice. Grip, ice and technique are in how to shake a Whiskey Sour.
5. Strain. For the rocks serve, strain over fresh ice. For the coupe, empty the ice water, hold a fine mesh under the Hawthorne strainer and pour — Difford's fine strains every serve to keep ice shards and pulp out of the glass.
6. Garnish. A lemon wheel and a cherry on the rocks, as Difford's does; or the IBA's flag of half an orange slice and a maraschino cherry. Up, an expressed lemon twist. Options in Whiskey Sour garnish.

The Egg-White Method (Boston Sour)

Add ½ oz of pasteurized egg white — about one small egg's worth — and change one thing about the shake. Egg protein has to be beaten into a foam, and ice breaks foam down, so the egg needs a shake of its own without ice. There are two accepted orders:

1. Dry shake, then ice. Shake with no ice for about ten seconds — Julie Reiner's rule is ten shakes — then add ice, shake until frosted, and fine strain into the chilled coupe. Reiner finds this gives finer bubbles and better mouthfeel.
2. Reverse dry shake. Shake with ice first, strain back into the empty tin, discard the ice, shake again without ice, and pour. In a Tales of the Cocktail test this gave the firmest, most meringue-like foam; bartenders quoted by PUNCH note larger bubbles (Reiner) and a head that settles faster (Ray Keane). Difford's uses this order.

Either way, serve it up: PUNCH's judges prefer egg-white sours in a coupe because the foam 'break[s] down quickly' on ice. Finish with an expressed lemon twist and two or three dashes of Angostura dragged across the foam, which the 2024 judges said masks egg aromas. The full method is on the Boston Sour page; safety and aquafaba are in the egg white guide.

The Six Mistakes Beginners Make

• Bottled lemon juice or sour mix. Packaged mixes defined the drink's worst decades; the craft revival restored fresh citrus for a reason. If the juice did not come out of a lemon today, the drink tastes of the bottle.
• Too much sugar. Usually from using rich syrup at the 1:1 measure. Difford's puts 2:1 syrup at 1.35 times the sweetness of 1:1, so ¾ oz of rich syrup is a different, sweeter drink. Convert.
• A short, polite shake. Gentle rocking leaves the drink warm, under-diluted and harsh. Shake hard until the tin frosts; dilution is part of the recipe.
• Egg white on the rocks. The foam breaks down quickly on ice, as PUNCH's judges put it. Serve the Boston Sour up and the classic over ice.
• Over-shaking the dry shake. Tristan Stephenson's warning: shake too long without ice and the drink arrives absurdly foamy. Ten seconds is enough.
• Raw egg for the wrong guest. The FDA advises pasteurized eggs for raw-egg recipes, with particular care for children, older adults, pregnant women and the immunocompromised. Use pasteurized egg white or about 1 oz of aquafaba.

Your First Three Sours

First, the classic rye Whiskey Sour above, no egg — the reference the family is measured against. Second, the Boston Sour, the same drink with egg white, which teaches the dry shake. Third, the bourbon Whiskey Sour, rounder and sweeter, which shows what the rye was doing. Then the New York Sour and the Gold Rush; everything beyond is in Whiskey Sour variations.

Choosing the Rye

Buy a 100-proof bonded rye. The proof survives the lemon, the sugar and the shake's dilution, and bottled-in-bond is where the value in rye lives. Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond Rye (100 proof, guide price $26.99) is the bottle behind both of PUNCH's contest favorites — Dan Sabo's 2017 winner and half of Alicia Perry's 2024 co-favorite — and the one to learn on. Old Forester Kentucky Straight Rye (100 proof, $27.99) and Wild Turkey 101 Rye (101 proof, $29.99) are the alternatives at the price; Old Overholt Straight Rye (86 proof, $19.99) makes a correct, slightly softer sour for less. All four are ranked in the budget rye guide; the full shortlist is the Bottle Library. The rest of the shopping list is a bag of lemons, a cup of sugar and, for the egg route, a carton of pasteurized egg whites and a bottle of Angostura.

Scaling Up for Guests

Multiply the rye, lemon and syrup by the number of drinks — for eight, 16 oz rye, 6 oz lemon juice and 6 oz simple syrup — juice the lemons within a few hours of serving, and keep the mix cold. Then shake each drink to order, two at a time at most: a sour's chill, dilution and texture all come from the shake. Egg white goes in per drink at the shaker, never into the batch.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make a whiskey sour step by step?

Chill a glass. Add 2 oz rye, ¾ oz fresh lemon juice and ¾ oz simple syrup to a shaker, fill with ice and shake hard until the tin frosts. Strain over fresh ice or fine strain into a chilled coupe; garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry. For egg white, add ½ oz, dry shake first, serve up and dash Angostura on the foam.

What is the ratio for a whiskey sour?

2 : ¾ : ¾ — 2 oz whiskey, ¾ oz lemon, ¾ oz 1:1 simple syrup — the PUNCH consensus. Difford's prefers 2 oz : 1 oz : ⅔ oz rich 2:1 syrup; the IBA specifies 45 : 25 : 20 ml. Learn 2 : ¾ : ¾ first.

Do you need egg white in a whiskey sour?

No. The IBA lists it as optional and Jerry Thomas's 1887 recipe has none. Egg white adds foam and a silky texture; with it the drink is commonly called a Boston Sour. Use pasteurized egg white and serve it up.

How long do you shake a whiskey sour?

Hard, until the shaker frosts — the Tales of the Cocktail spec gives 10 to 15 seconds with ice. For egg white, add a dry shake of about ten seconds without ice first, or after for the reverse method.

Can I make a whiskey sour without a shaker?

Yes. Jerry Thomas's 1887 method dissolves the sugar in a little seltzer in the glass, adds lemon and whiskey, fills with shaved ice and 'shake[s] up' — any lidded jar does the same. Skip the egg white, which needs a hard shake or a blender.

Rye or bourbon for a whiskey sour?

Both are original — Thomas's recipe says 'Bourbon or rye.' Rye holds up better against lemon and sugar, and PUNCH's 2017 judges preferred it; the winning drink used Rittenhouse. Bourbon makes a rounder, sweeter sour.