Muddle

Technique used in bartending, it entails placing fruit, herbs, sugar or some other such ingredient into the bottom of a glass or shaker with either a small amout of liquid or ice and using a wooden or plastic pestle to crush the ingredient. This technique is used to release the flavor of the ingredient so it is readily absorbed by the liquor in the case of herbs or fruit. In the case of sugar this is often used to ensure that the sugar properly disolves.

Mud"dle (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Muddled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Muddling (?).] [From Mud.]

1.

To make turbid, or muddy, as water.

He did ill to muddle the water. L'Estrange.

2.

To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.

Epicurus seems to have had brains so muddled and confounded, that he scarce ever kept in the right way. Bentley.

Often drunk, always muddled. Arbuthnot.

3.

To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated.

They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it. Hazlitt.

4.

To mix confusedly; to confuse; to make a mess of; as, to muddle matters; also, to perplex; to mystify.

F. W. Newman.

© Webster 1913.

Mud"dle, v. i.

1.

To dabble in mud.

Swift.

2.

To think and act in a confused, aimless way.

© Webster 1913.

Mud"dle, n.

A state of being turbid or confused; hence, intellectual cloudiness or dullness.

We both grub on in a muddle. Dickens.

© Webster 1913.