Coming off a dry January? Ready to offer your guests (or yourself) something more than a vodka tonic or a beer? Not sure when to stick with the basics or when it’s worth a little splurge? Let us help you ease back into your beverage consumption with a bit more attention to your flavors, tools, and bar design. We’re sharing a bit of what we have found works best for sippers, cocktails, and shooters.
1. Start With Your Core Spirits
Ask yourself “what do I like?” What flavors, textures, complexity do you gravitate towards? Do you entertain? Do you prefer making pitchers or individual drinks? These are simple questions to keep in mind when deciding how to stock your bar. Do you prefer a white or dark Tequila, is your whiskey only for mixing drinks or will you also be sipping it neat or on the rocks? A great cocktail tequila may not be an interesting sipper, and vice versa. Of course, outside of preferred drinks, it is usually nice to have an option or two that is a crowd pleaser like a simple vodka and a classic whiskey.
2. Let’s Talk Apéritifs
For us these are essential in creating our favorite cocktails. We always stock Lillet for a Martini, Campri for a Negroni, and Vermouths for everything in-between (we always have two bottles of Rosso on hand!).
3. Don’t be Bitter About Bitters
Do you fancy an old fashion, maybe would like to relax with a negroni, well you’ll need to have your bitters stocked. Bitters are essential for improving and aligning your flavors when mixing. We recommend keep Angostura Aromatic and Orange in stock at all time, but again keep in mind your preferance.
4. Keep it Short (and Sometimes Sweet)
When it comes to sweet cocktails, we tend to pass, but cocktail making is a science and the sweetness of the simple syrup can be essentail to get the flavor combination just right. In fact, even a drink as sweet as a margarita may be pushed more to the bitter or sour range by adjusting your this one item. You can customize the flavor and richness of your simple syrup by making it yourself (link recipe) but there are great store bought options out there as well!
Remember, building your home bar is never one size fits all, but we found when hosting parties and entertaining this offered a great array to mix up something for anyone – Cheers!
