There is one rule, and it covers nearly every cocktail you'll ever make:
Shake when the drink has citrus, dairy, or egg. Stir when it's all spirits, sugar, and bitters or vermouth.
Memorize that and you'll rarely be wrong.
Why the rule exists
Shaking chills hard and fast, dilutes a lot, aerates, and emulsifies anything thick: citrus, syrup, cream, egg white. The drink comes out cold, frothy, slightly cloudy, and lighter on the palate. A Daiquiri or Whiskey Sour wants exactly that.
Stirring chills and dilutes with almost zero aeration, so the drink stays clear and glossy. A Manhattan or Martini wants the spirit's weight, not a foam.
Get it backwards and you fight the drink. A shaken Manhattan looks like dirty pond water and tastes thin. A stirred Daiquiri is flat. It's also warm and undiluted, because a spoon can't move enough heat through citrus and syrup.
Dilution targets
Both techniques add water on purpose, and classic ratios assume a set amount. Too little and the drink is hot and harsh. Too much and it's washed out.
Technique
Target dilution
Why
Stirred
~20-25%
Spirit-forward drinks need just enough water to soften the burn without losing weight
Shaken
~25-30%
Citrus and sugar can absorb more water; aeration also makes a slightly wetter drink feel right
How long to shake
8 to 12 seconds. Hard.
Stop when the tin is painfully cold and frosted outside. You want to break the ice, not rattle it: more fragments chill and dilute faster, so short and vigorous beats long and gentle.
Skip Kazuo Uyeda's famous "Hard Shake" with its three-point motion. Whatever the forums claim, it's a party trick: Dave Arnold's tests found it does nothing to temperature or dilution that a normal vigorous shake doesn't. Hold the tins firmly.
The Whip Shake
For citrus or dairy drinks you'll top with soda (a Tom Collins or a fizz), shake with two or three small ice pebbles for 4 to 5 seconds. That emulsifies and chills lightly without over-diluting, since the soda dilutes further. Strain over fresh ice and top.
Dry shake (egg white)
For egg-white sours (Whiskey Sour with a foam, Pisco Sour, Amaretto Sour), shake without ice for 10 seconds to whip the egg, then add ice and shake another 10. Start with ice and the foam never gets fluffy.
How long to stir
20 to 30 seconds.
Yes, longer than a shake. You're moving ice, not breaking it, so heat transfers much less efficiently. That's the point: slow, controlled chilling without a shake's violent dilution.
A 20-second stir gets a Martini cold, glossy, and inside the stirred dilution target. Give a heavier drink 30: a Negroni, or an Old Fashioned built with a sugar cube. Past 30 you're just watering it down.
Ride the spoon against the inside wall of the glass and spin the shaft between your fingers, wrist still. The ice should rotate as one column. If it clatters, you're moving the spoon, not the ice.
The Bond exception (he's wrong)
James Bond orders his Martini "shaken, not stirred." It's a brand line, and bad advice. A shaken Martini is cloudy, frothy, and over-diluted. That's all "bruised" ever meant: air bubbles and ice shards, not damaged botanicals. You lose the silky, glassy texture that's the whole reason to drink one.
Shaking a Martini only kind of makes sense with room-temperature spirit that needs a fast chill, at the cost of texture. If your gin lives in the freezer (it should), there's no excuse.
The decision flowchart
Egg white or whole egg? Dry shake, then shake with ice.
Topping with soda or sparkling wine? Build the base in the glass (or whip-shake it), bubbles last. Never shake carbonation.
Citrus juice, cream, coconut cream, or any dairy? Shake.
Syrup as a major component (orgeat, honey, simple over ½ oz)? Usually shake.
All clear and alcoholic, maybe a dash of bitters or splash of vermouth? Stir.
A few honest exceptions
Espresso Martini: no citrus or dairy, strictly speaking, but you absolutely shake it. The espresso foam is the point, and it needs aeration.
Gimlet: gin and fresh lime, so shake. The older gin-and-Rose's-cordial version, which Harry MacElhone printed in the 1920s with the instruction "Stir," has no fresh juice, so stir that one if you like. The story ties it to Royal Navy officers mixing gin into their anti-scurvy lime ration.
Bloody Mary:roll it, pouring back and forth between two tins for 10 seconds. A hard shake foams the tomato juice and makes it weirdly thin.