If you’ve ever ordered mojitos, caipirinhas or mint juleps at a bar, you likely saw the bartender break out a tool that looked like a miniature baseball bat. Perhaps that bartender proceeded to use it to gently crush herbs at the bottom of a mixing tin, using a tapping or light twisting movement. It’s a practice called muddling, and it’s important to making a wide array of cocktails. But what exactly is a muddler? And why take the time to muddle, anyway? Here, we break down everything you need to know about the practice and the best muddlers to buy according to the pros. What Is a Muddler? In brief, it’s a bar tool used to gently crush, or “muddle” ingredients intended for cocktails. Usually, muddlers are long and narrow so that they can fit easily within the dimensions of a cocktail tin or mixing glass. What Is Muddling? Muddling is the action of using the tool to apply pressure to ingredients intended to mix into cocktails. That might mean gently tamping down herbs like mint just enough to release their aromatics into a mojito or mint julep. Or it could mean more forcefully grinding fruit to exude juice and/or aromatic oils, such as breaking down berries to flavor a variation on a blackberry smash. To be clear, muddling is a gentler technique than grinding ingredients like spices or coffee beans. It’s not about pulverizing cocktail ingredients to smithereens. Muddling is intended to extract aromas, flavors and/or liquid from ingredients, or break down solids just enough so they can be incorporated into a cocktail more easily. How Do You Muddle? That depends on what you’re muddling, the pros say. Muddling delicate ingredients like herbs generally requires a gentle tapping motion, while excising juice and pith out of citrus calls for more force. For that reason, some bartenders opt for multiple muddlers—or know when to use more or less vigor in their muddling technique. But while a wide variety of muddlers exist, that doesn’t mean home bartenders need to invest in multiple tools. In fact, you can bootstrap a muddler if you’re so inclined, says Kelley Fitzsimonds, bartender and manager at Asadolife in St. Augustine, Florida. “I’d like to refer to Jeffrey Morganthaler’s The Bar Book, where he suggests cutting a French rolling pin in half, so you have a two-sided muddler—one end narrow for fine-muddling herbs, and one end beefy to really smash larger items like lime slices.” That said, if you’re not inclined to MacGyver your muddler, we asked the pros to recommend their favorite crushers. The Best Muddlers, According to the Pros The Best Heavy-Duty Muddler: The Most Durable Muddler: The Most Ergonomic Muddler: The Best Muddler for Delicate Jobs: The Most Versatile Muddler: The Best Budget Muddler: The Most Fashionable Muddler: The Best Muddler for Mojitos: