How to Read a Split

The drawing is the recipe. Here is what it says.

Every cocktail on The Split is drawn as one glass, split down the middle. The left half is the drink as it sits in the glass. The right half is what went into it. Once you have read one, you will not need this page again.

The Right Half: The Ingredients

• One band per ingredient. Its thickness is that ingredient’s share of the drink, by parts. Equal parts draw as equal bands; a 2:1:1 drink draws as one band twice the height of the other two.
• The order is the build. Bands stack from the floor up in the order the ingredients go in — first ingredient at the bottom. Members can flip that in Settings, under The Reading Order.
• Small things draw small. A dash, a barspoon, a drop, a pinch — each is a sliver, sized to what it actually adds.
• “Top with” takes what is left. Soda, tonic, or sparkling wine fills whatever the measured pours leave, and always at least a visible share of the glass, so you can see it is there.
• The labels are the recipe line. Amount and name beside each band, top to bottom in the same order. Amounts are in parts; the switch under the glass shows them as ml or oz instead.
• Substitutions redraw the band. On drinks that allow one, choose an ingredient and pick a substitute — the band takes the substitute’s color and its amount is scaled to match.

The Left Half: The Finished Drink

• What you would see holding the glass. The liquid’s layers, top to bottom, in the color of the liquid itself.
• Most drinks are one layer. Stirred and shaken drinks are fully mixed, so the left half is a single color even when the right half has five bands. That difference is the point: the right half is what you measure, the left half is what you get.
• Built and floated drinks show their layers. Each layer is sized by how much of the drink it is. Cream floated on coffee is a thin pale layer over a dark one.
• Clear liquids are drawn clear. The page shows through a gin or a vodka; a bitter red aperitivo does not. A sparkling layer bubbles, unless your system asks for reduced motion.

Around the Glass

• The corner icons name the glass, the method (stirred, shaken, built…), and mark a mocktail when there is no alcohol in it. Hover or focus one to read it.
• The garnish is not drawn. It is not poured, so it has no amount. It is the last line of the recipe, under The Method.
• Below the glass come Mise en Place (what to prepare ahead — a syrup, an infusion, a chilled glass) and The Method, step by step.
• The same drawing travels. When you share a link to a recipe, the picture that shows up is this glass.

That is all of it. Go read some cocktails.