How to Build a Home Bar
Some nights you’d rather enjoy a cocktail in the comfort of your own home than head out to a bar. A home bar requires just a few essentials to make bar-quality cocktails at home! You’ll impress your guests, streamline your evenings, and ultimately save money by making your own drinks at home. So what do you need to build a home bar?
A Dedicated Space
First, you need one spot where all your bottles, bitters, glassware, and tools will live. This could be a sleek bar cart, a sideboard, or even an empty kitchen cabinet if space is limited. Even a gorgeous bar tray will do! Having all your bar-related items in one spot lets you quickly evaluate what you have available and lets guests know your bar is open for business.
Yes, some ingredients such as already-opened mixers and vermouth, garnishes, and fresh fruits will have to be refrigerated, but organization is key here. Keeping all of your bar-related items together and organized makes it easy and quick to whip up a martini or an Old Fashioned.
Essential Bar Tools
While a spoon and a mason jar may have been good enough in your younger years, today there are a handful of essential bar tools that elevate your bar (and your credibility!). You only need a few to get started:
Cocktail shaker: A basic Boston cocktail shaker is easy to use and easy to clean. You’ll see these most often in professional bars for those reasons.
Jigger: Jiggers are hourglass-shaped measuring tools with a half-ounce capacity on one side and 1.5 ounces capacity on the other. Using recipe measurements (rather than eyeballing it) ensures perfect cocktails every time.
Bar spoon: The bar spoon is a very long tool, often with a spiral handle and a small spoon. It’s used to stir drinks, crush ice, retrieve garnishes from jars, and layer spirits for dramatic effect.
Strainer: There are three basic strainers that bartenders use. A fine mesh strainer is used mainly for straining out ice. A Hawthorne strainer, when used in conjunction with the mesh strainer, is the most effective way to keep all shards of ice out of the drink for a perfectly smooth drinking experience. A Julep strainer holds back ice and large muddled ingredients, such as fruit or herbs.
Muddler: A good-quality muddler mashes ingredients like herbs, fruit, and sugar cubes in cocktails to release their flavors and essential oils.
These tools can often be purchased in sets if so desired. There are a few more useful things that you likely already have in your kitchen, such as a paring knife and a peeler (I really like these cheap ones!) for fruit and garnishes. As you experiment with making cocktails at home, you’ll find more interesting tools to step up your bartending game, like smokers and spirit infusers.
Staple Bottles
Don’t worry about buying out the liquor store just yet. To get started, most classic cocktails are built around a few spirits. Keep a bottle of each at the ready:
Bourbon
Scotch
Gin
Vodka
Tequila
Buy brands you like to drink or are popular with your friends. Before long, you’ll be branching out into dark and light rums, amaros, mezcal, and more.
Mixers, Bitters, and Garnishes
Not everyone likes to drink their liquor straight. It’s easy to keep a few shelf-stable ingredients handy to make your home bar complete. Soda water is a popular mixer with all kinds of spirits, as is ginger ale and tonic. Vermouth, often used in martinis, needs to be refrigerated after opening.
Angostura bitters are critical in turning a pour of bourbon into an Old Fashioned with the help of some sugar and citrus peels. Flavored bitters, like Regan’s Orange or any from Crude Bitters lend complexity and interest to a cocktail.
Fresh fruit, both the peels and juices, take your liquor to another level. Oranges, limes, and lemons are the most frequently used. Peel, slice, or juice your fruit as you’re making your cocktails –rather than ahead of time – for best results. Olives, maraschino cherries, and other jarred garnishes should be refrigerated after opening.
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