A Beginner’s Guide to Stocking Your Home Bar

If you enjoy having friends over for entertaining, then a well-stocked bar is a must. Being able to pour sophisticated drinks without going out to a crowded bar can impress friends and create a romantic atmosphere for dates. While creating an entire full bar set up at home can be an intimidating task, a complete home bar is surprisingly easy to set up.

Bar Ware

There a few key tools you’ll want to have on hand to make mixing up magic in your own kitchen a fun and easy process. Start with bar ware – most of the items used by bartenders can be found online or at your local home goods store. To begin, you’ll want to gather a good metal cocktail shaker, a hand juicer, a strainer, and a measuring cup known as a jigger. If you don’t want to get all of these new, you can generally use everyday items as substitutes for the real thing. For example, you can use an egg cup as a jigger, and substitute a thermos flask for a cocktail shaker. With those four basic tools, you’ll be able to create cocktails to rival those found at crafted cocktail bars in Winter Park, FL.

You’ll also want to have a mix of glasses. If you want to go all in, get six glass types: stemmed wine glasses, champagne flutes, martini glasses, old-fashioned tumblers, high-ball glasses, and pint glasses. All of the glassware options can be used for specialty cocktails, but if you want to pick just one, go for the tumbler. It’s a classic choice that can be used for straight liquor and most mixed drinks.

Alcohol and Mixers

When preparing to be your own mixologist, remember that it’s okay to start small. You don’t have to have a full working bar right off the bat; you can ease your way into it by obtaining only the necessities first. Ideally, pick a few cocktails and then assemble everything you need to make them. If you’d rather take a more general approach, there are a few types of alcohol that are home bar standbys, and these are the ones you’ll want to feature in your home.

Gin, whiskey, and vodka are staples in the majority of popular cocktails, so a bottle of each is a good place to start. Supplement these with a bottle of sweet and dry vermouth for martinis, and keep a few mixers on hand. Popular mixers include tonic water, orange and cranberry juice, club soda, and cola.

With these basics, you’ll have the beginnings of an excellent home bar set up for you and your friends to enjoy. Crafted cocktail bars in Winter Park, FL, use many of the same items and ingredients with mixing drinks for the masses, so you’ll be extremely successful making them at home.

Kevin Smith is a writer and an avid reader. He writes about business, marketing, health, pets, or relationships etc.