Cocktails with Celery stick
A celery stick is a trimmed stalk of celery, cut to the height of the glass and served in the drink.
Substitutes for Celery stick
A cucumber baton is rigid enough and brings a cleaner, less savory note. A pickled bean or a spring onion keeps the savory side and loses the crunch. Celery bitters covers the flavor and does nothing structural.
Often confused with
Celery salt
A seasoning of ground celery seed and salt, not a part of the plant. It puts the savory note into the liquid; the stick puts crunch and aroma above it — so one seasons the liquid and the other works above it, and neither does the other’s job.
Celery leaves
Too delicate to stand up in the glass, so they garnish a short drink where a whole stick would look absurd.
Storage
Whole heads keep five to seven weeks at 0–2 °C, and about two weeks at the 5 °C a domestic fridge runs, wrapped. Limp stalks revive in ice water for an hour as the xylem draws water back and turgor returns. Cut sticks go soft in a day, so cut them to order.
