Apple wood cocktail muddler

A buddy of mine is really getting into cocktail recipes and asked me if I was able to make him a wooden muddler on the lathe. Being a beer guy, I needed to look this up. It’s for pressing the juice and oils out of herbs and fruit at the bottom of a glass without tearing the herbs and releasing chlorophyll to make it bitter.

Times being what they are, he said just to use whatever I had lying around but I wanted to make something special. I have maple and beech on hand, but I also had an apple log I’d picked up at an orchard last year. So several terrifying ax cuts later, I was able to chop off something I could work with on the mini lathe. Smaller chunks went into the barbecue, which was amazing. The colour and grain are entrancing – I’m very much looking forward to trying some tool handles too.

Once I turned it down and sanded to 1000 grit, I burned in a small detail and finished it with several coats of beeswax burnished in to keep food safe and allergy free.

Never one to avoid complicating things, I threw together a box of rough pine so I could package it with the apple wood plane shavings. I’m pretty darned pleased with the results.

Cheers and stay safe.