How to Make a Jim Beam and Coke Properly, and What Most People Get Wrong

30mL of bourbon to 150mL of cola. That is one to five, it is the standard bar pour, and it is right.

If you want the bourbon to lead, go to 45mL and keep the cola at 150. That is one to three and a half, and it is where the drink stops tasting like cola with a suggestion of whiskey and starts tasting like a bourbon highball. It is also roughly what a Double Serve can does, which is why those cans taste noticeably better than standard premix.

What does not work is going past about 60mL in a standard glass. At that point there is not enough cola to carry it, the drink turns syrupy and hot, and you would be better off drinking the bourbon neat.

For reference, a 700mL bottle at 37% gives you about 23 drinks at a 30mL pour, or 15 at 45mL.

Fill the glass. Not three cubes, not half full. Fill it.

This is counterintuitive and it is the single biggest improvement most people can make. More ice does not mean a more watery drink; it means a colder one that melts slower. Three cubes in a warm glass melt fast and dilute continuously, and by the third mouthful you are drinking flat, warm, watery cola. A glass packed with ice keeps the temperature down, so the ice that is there melts far more slowly.

Use the biggest cubes you have. Small cubes have more surface area for the same volume and melt faster. If you are serious about it, freeze a tray and use two or three large cubes rather than a dozen small ones.

And chill the cola. Adding room-temperature cola to ice melts a third of it immediately.

A tall glass, a highball, not a tumbler. The drink is long and it needs the height. A short glass forces you to cut the cola, which throws the ratio out.

Ice first, then bourbon, then cola. Pouring the cola last means the bubbles do the mixing for you, so you do not need to stir and you do not knock the carbonation out. If you stir, one gentle turn with a long spoon is plenty.

A wedge of lime is not optional. Squeeze it in and drop it in. Cola is sweet and bourbon is sweet, and without acid the drink is one-dimensional. Lime is what makes it refreshing rather than merely sweet, and it is the difference between a decent bourbon and coke and a good one. Lemon works if you have no lime.

White Label, at $44.90 for the 700mL. This is what the bottle was designed for. The corn sweetness sits underneath cola rather than fighting it, and the rye keeps the drink from going flat, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

Do not use Jim Beam Black for this. It is a better whiskey and it makes a worse bourbon and coke, because you are paying nine dollars extra for seven years of barrel character that cola erases entirely. Keep Black for drinking neat.

Definitely do not use Single Barrel or Devil's Cut. Devil's Cut is dry and heavily oaked, and cola's sweetness flattens exactly the thing you paid for. If you want a mixed drink with Devil's Cut, use dry ginger ale instead: the ginger's bite lines up with the oak rather than smothering it.

The one flavoured bottle that genuinely takes cola is Red Stag Black Cherry. Cherry and cola is a hundred-year-old combination and the bourbon underneath gives it backbone.

Any of the major ones. The differences between them are real but small next to the ratio and the ice, and anyone who tells you a specific cola transforms the drink is overstating it.

Zero sugar cola genuinely does change the drink, though, and more than people expect. Without cola sweetness on top, the bourbon's vanilla and charred oak come forward and the finish runs drier. It is not a compromise version; a lot of people prefer it once they try it properly. The Zero Sugar cans are built on exactly this.

Avoid anything that has been open in the fridge for two days. Flat cola makes a bad drink no matter what you put in it.

Do not pre-mix in a jug. Cola goes flat and the drink is ruined by the second round. Set up ice, bottle, cola and cut limes, and let people pour.

For scale, a 1.75L handle gives about 58 drinks at a 30mL pour, which covers a decent party. A 1 litre gives about 33.

If it has to be portable, cans are the answer and there is no shame in it. The Double Serve slab is the closest thing in a can to a properly poured drink, at two nips per can. Just be aware they are 6.7% rather than 4.8%, which catches people out.

Tall glass. Fill it with ice. 30mL of White Label, or 45mL if you want to taste it. Top with cold cola. Squeeze a lime wedge in and drop it in. Do not stir much.

That is a drink that costs about a dollar fifty to make and is better than nearly every bourbon and coke you will be served in a pub.