Home Cocktail Bar

There comes a point in your entertaining life when you realize that offering friends a cold beer isn’t going to cut it any longer.  Deciding that you’re ready to up your home cocktail bar game, is the first step in figuring out what to do next.  Here’s what you need to know about Essential Liquors & Equipment for Setting Up Your Home Bar:

5 Steps to Creating a Home Cocktail Bar

1. Setting up your home cocktail bar.
2. Glassware to have on hand.
3. Essential tools for your home bar.
4. Must have cocktail ingredients.
5. Cool things for your home bar.

Step 1: Setting up Your Home Bar  

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There are so many different options to setting up a home bar including:

• Bar Carts
• Side Tables
• A specific space in your kitchen

Rules for where you set up your home bar don’t actually exist anywhere but in our minds – so don’t get in your own way when figuring out where your new home bar will be located! Pick a place where you’ll gather your Bar Necessities – your essential liquors and equipment.

Step 2: Gathering Essential Glassware to Have On-Hand

If you’ve ever been to a wedding or another large event, I can almost guarantee you that they have not provided the finest crystal or the most expensive champagne flutes.  My point is, you don’t need to buy expensive glassware to have exactly what you need on-hand.  First, start with the number of guests you would most frequently be hosting in your home at one time.  This is how many of each glass you want to start to gather.  Use these four tips for gathering the glassware you need:

The Bar Essentials – What you Need to Set Up Your Home Bar

1. Determine the number of guests you will most frequently host.
2. Choose a style that can be easily found and replaced for breakage.
3. Store four of your glasses in an easy to reach spot, and the rest where you can get to them when you have a larger crowd.
4. When starting out don’t get stuck on having different red wine glasses and different white wine glasses, etc.  Pick a red glass and a white glass.  As you continue to increase the number of people you have attending your gatherings, or decide on a particular vintage that is your favorite, you can easily refine your collection. Grab an inexpensive set of one of each of these types of glasses to get you started:
   • White wine glasses
   • Red wine glasses
   • Champagne flutes
   • Pint glasses
   • Rocks glasses
   • Highball glasses 

Step 3: Essential Tools for Your Home Bar

It’s time to clear up another misconception.  Bar tools are not hard to find, nor are they expensive.  You need a few essential equipment pieces to get your home bar company ready.

I could recommend pieces from different places to complete your essential tools, but honestly, this set covers them all.  It includes a cocktail shaker, strainer, bottle opener, double jigger (to measure your alcohol), mixing spoon, and ice tongs.

Add a cork screw and an ice bucket and you’re set and ready to go.  Take a look at my favorites:

TIP: Always have two corkscrews on-hand.  They’ve been known to go missing or break at the worst times!

Once your glasses and tools are in place, add a few finishing pieces such as an ice bucket, bottle opener, and cocktail napkins for entertaining so everything guests need is right at hand.

Step 4: Must Have Cocktail Ingredients – Essential Liquor

There are a couple of choices when choosing what your must-have cocktail ingredients are going to be.

1. You can fully stock your bar with everything you would need to make most cocktails.  It’s not hard to do, and I have the list of what you need covered here, but it is costly to do all at once.
2. Choose a couple of “house cocktails”, and buy the ingredients just for them.

When choosing what must-have cocktail ingredients to have on-hand, I encourage you to first decide on a “house cocktail”.  A house cocktail is a drink you always have on hand.  In my house I have two house house cocktails.  The first is a rum and coke, and the second is a margarita.  They are easy to make, and don’t take many ingredients.  I also always have a red and a white wine available.  Usually, I’ll choose a Josh Cabernet and a Josh Pinot Grigio.  They’re my go-to.

Step 5: Bar Accessories for Home Bar

When it comes to accessorizing a bar there really aren’t any rules.  It all depends on your personal style!  Here are some of my favorite items:

Use a fancy bar mat to mix up your cocktail concoctions! It’s pretty cool, and it saves your countertop if they are prone to damage from citrus!

I really love some unique items that set your home bar apart from others.  Check out these really cool home bar whisky stones:

Set your home bar apart by adding a beverage refrigerator! Nothing says a good time like a nice, cool beverage at the ready to serve guests!

However you decide to set up your home bar, these Bar Necessities – Essential Liquors & Equipment for Setting Up Your Home Bar will have you prepped and ready for your next get together with friends – and isn’t that something all of us need right now?