Salt Is the Secret Ingredient Your Cocktails Are Missing

Over the course of my career, I’ve developed hundreds of recipes. I don’t have any formal culinary training nor have I worked a single shift behind a bar, but I do know how different flavor profiles play together. More often than not, my initial ideas produced results pretty close to what I was going for and if I had to make tweaks throughout the testing process, they were usually along the lines of a little more of this or a dash of that.

A few extra embellishments are generally fine for a stovetop recipe, especially if we’re talking about the sorts of staples people tend to keep in the fridge or pantry. But I’m always careful not to overdo the ingredient list of cocktail recipes, because most people’s home bars don’t look like mine—which is stocked with an almost embarrassing array of base and infused spirits, liqueurs, aperitifs, digestifs, and bitters. Plus, sometimes what a cocktail needs isn’t any of those anyway; it’s salt.

Though it might sound strange at first, adding food’s most ubiquitous flavor enhancer to a boozy or nonalcoholic cocktail is hardly an out-there idea. Margaritas are better with salted rims, and most of what makes a dirty martini so good is the salt in the olive (or pickle) brine. The same goes for The Gibson, with its sweet-and-savory cocktail onion garnish.

“A little salt goes a long way in beverages,” says Christopher Ciesiel, co-owner and operator of Sagebrush, a Kansas City, Kansas, cocktail bar where bartenders pinch salt into the drinks regularly. The Sagebrush margarita gets rimmed with a mix of different kinds of savory salts, which Ciesiel says “amplify the nuttiness of the sherry.” (Yes, there’s sherry in the house margarita.) He also uses a saline solution—think of it like the savory answer to simple syrup and not something for your contact lenses—for the house daiquiri, which revolves around a lime sorbet made with blended lime peels.

“The saline not only tames the bitterness,” he says. “It enhances and balances the relationship between the citrus and the sugar.”

At Ciesiel’s restaurant, The Campground, the saline goes into light and citrusy cocktails as well as savory and spirit-forward ones. “Used sparingly, salt plays a supporting role that enhances the depth of chocolate and amaro,” he says.

You don’t need to mix up your own saline solution to add a little salt to your cocktails (but don’t be surprised if you see it at your favorite new bar). In my experience, a pinch of flaky or finely ground, high-quality sea salt can do wonders for a drink.

Of course, not every drink needs salt, but the next time you’re making one and think to yourself it’s missing a little something but you can’t quite figure out what, try incorporating a smidge of sodium chloride. Just be sure to start small because you can always add more if you need to, but unlike your pasta water, you don’t want your cocktail to taste like the sea.

Your drinks deserve fancy salt

Sure, you could use that iodized Morton you’ve been pouring out of a cardboard cylinder for months, but I think your bar deserves something better. Since you’re only going to use a little pinch of salt in your cocktails, spring for the good stuff. In fact, I recommend keeping a small jar (or cool marble salt cellar) of dedicated drink salt on your bar alongside your favorite bottles and bitters.