The jigger, the spoons and the jug

A recipe prints 30 ml and leaves you to own whatever holds 30 ml. Every measure on a recipe page has a tip beside it naming the tool it takes and how to pour it; these are those tools, side by side, in the sizes they are made in on both sides of the Atlantic.

Convert a measure All cocktails The tools Glassware My Bar

Jigger

Two cones meeting at a waist, one pour in each. A spirit is measured into the small side or the large one, and the tip on a recipe names which.

Part of it	Metric	American
Small side	25 ml	3/4 oz
Large side	50 ml	1 1/2 oz

What to look for

Look for one marked on the inside as well as the outside, because a line you can see from above is the difference between a pour and a guess. Buy the pair you pour with - a metric jigger is 25 ml and 50 ml, an American one 3/4 oz and 1 1/2 oz - and try a cheap one against a teaspoon when it arrives, since jiggers have been sold holding half as much again as they claim.

Spoons

A level teaspoon and a tablespoon, which is what everything under the jigger's small side is measured with - and what finishes a pour that is not a whole number of jiggers.

Part of it	Metric	American
A teaspoon	5 ml	1/6 oz
A tablespoon	15 ml	1/2 oz

What to look for

A kitchen already has the tablespoon and the teaspoon; what is worth adding is the small end - half and a quarter of a teaspoon - with the size stamped into the handle rather than guessed at. Stainless rather than plastic, levelled with a knife unless a recipe says heaped, and worth knowing: a bar spoon is a stirrer the length of a glass, not a measure.

Measuring jug

For the amounts that would take four pours of a jigger: a pitcher, a punch, the soda for a round. A jug holds whatever its marks say, so the size to buy is the one that covers the batch.

Part of it	Metric	American
A quarter litre	250 ml	1 1/8 cups
Half a litre	500 ml	2 1/8 cups
A litre	1 l	4 1/4 cups

What to look for

Look for one marked up the side in both systems - millilitres on one edge and cups on the other, since a recipe from the other side of the Atlantic is half the reason to own one - with room above the top mark to pour without spilling. Fired-on markings rather than printed ones, which wear off in the wash, and the thing no jug does: it measures volume, never weight.

The two columns are two tools rather than two names for one, so they are not the same pour: 50 ml (1 3/4 oz) is not the American 1 1/2 oz (44 ml). The two spoons are much closer - a metric teaspoon is 5 ml and an American one a sixth of an ounce, a hair under it - which is why a tip says "a teaspoon" on both sides of the Atlantic.

Two of the things a recipe measures with have no size here, because they are not measures: a dash is a quick shake of the bottle, about a millilitre and no two authors agree on it, and a splash is poured by eye - about two teaspoons, and freely. A pinch sits between the two: what comes up between finger and thumb, about a quarter of a teaspoon.

What this page cannot answer is the question a reader arrives with in their hand - what this measure is, the one they are looking at. That is one measure at a time, so it is a page of its own rather than a column here: convert a measure, with the size you wrote in the address so the answer can be linked to.

Which set of units a recipe page prints is a setting on the reader rather than on the drink: millilitres by default, American measures if you ask for them in your profile. A page's tip is worked out from the number as that page prints it, so the advice and the measure beside it always describe the same pour.