CoCo Fine Strainger From Cocktail Kingdom

While we love experimenting with fruit, herbs and eggs in our shakers, nothing can ruin a drinking experience like a floater found in your coupe. Thus, the double-strain emerged, helping to create textural masterpieces each night in bars around the country.

And yet, this important maneuver is often conducted using a tool borrowed from a kitchen. No longer: The fine-mesh strainer has been given a makeover for the bar, thanks to the discerning care of boutique barware sellers Cocktail Kingdom.

Designed with the help of former bartender Don Lee (of PDT and Momofuku Ssäm Bar) in New York, the stainless-steel device ($7) boasts a deeper conical shape, which can hold the contents of an entire cocktail. That's right: no more pour-wait-pour. Furthermore, the mesh is structured so that liquid travels to the bottom of the cone rather than messily coming out its sides. In a crowded bar, such tiny distinctions can be gentle saviors.

The CoCo strainer's well-timed arrival coincides with the onslaught of summer produce, when the garden plays muse behind the stick. Use it to create the Sweet Bitter End of Tokyo (see the recipe), a vernal concoction from Matthew Biancaniello of the Library Bar in Los Angeles. In his version at the bar, he infuses the sake with mochi–but it works just as well as is.