*DON’T USE BRIGHT-RED MARASCHINO CHERRIES.

  I would recommend a bottle (750mL) in the $15-25 price range for all of your liquors to start off, and then purchase more expensive brands as your tastes and preferences improve.

  I also mentioned scotch, and that it’s not included in the keep it inexpensive mantra. That’s because scotch rarely works well in a mixed drink, and it’s got such a pronounced taste it’s going to shine through anything. If it’s cheap, it’ll make your entire drink taste cheap.

  Vodka, on the other hand, and to some extent rum, can be dirt-cheap and not many people will know. If you’re mixing with Coke (the soda), your booze just gets lost in it anyway. But don’t mix it with Coke — there are so many better things to drink!

  So, we’ve got a liquor cabinet built and stocked, and our ingredients picked out. We’re ready!

  Wait… one more thing.

  You need something called bitters.

  Bitters are a crucial — and often overlooked — ingredient for cocktails. They’re not really bitter, but they’re not really not bitter. They’re a bit in-between. You don’t drink “bitters” by itself, and you only ever put it in your drink in measures of “dashes,” so it’s never a lot at a time. But what it does to your drink is amazing.

  It’s sort of like squeezing a bit of lime juice into your food — it tends to gel the flavors together, yet allow each of the ingredients’ unique characteristics to shine through. Add a dash or two of bitters to even a rum and Coke, and you’ll notice a huge — and amazing — difference.

  There are two bitters brands worth looking into: Angostura and Peychaud’s. Angostura is the most popular, and the most versatile, and it’s usually on the shelf of any grocery chain, but Peychaud’s has a very unique, very distinct flavor that can further elevate your drink to headsplosion levels.

  Grab both if you can afford it, otherwise stick to or start with Angostura.

  Whew. Okay, now we’re ready!

  Shopping list for this chapter:

  - Rum (white and dark/spiced)

  - Bourbon

  - Gin

  - Vodka

  - Tequila

  - Scotch

  - Bitters (Angostura & Peychaud’s are the most popular, but if you can find a little travel/sample kit, pick one up — they’re a ton of fun!)

  Additional liquors I use quite often in my own bar:

  - Brandy (or Cognac)

  Vermouth (dry and sweet, but start with dry)

  - Campari

  - Orange liqueur (Triple Sec, Cointreau, etc. Even though these have different ABVs, they are interchangeable most of the time. I’ll specify which is needed if it’s important).

  - Absinthe

  - Chartreuse

  - Pisco

  - Cachaça

  - Orgeat

  3

  Tools

  Every barman or barwoman needs the right weapons — tools. These tools are a requirement for doing business, even if that business is simply mixing up a batch of rum punch for a block party.

  So many people are used to substituting one thing for another because they don’t have the right stuff on hand. Don’t have sugar? Use honey. No butter? Use oil. Don’t have baking powder? Stop trying to bake and go cook your food outside over an open flame like God intended.

  Tending bar like the classy pro that you are deserves more than just your late Aunt Milda’s treatment of tools: use what you have on hand, or just substitute! No shaker? Just give it a jiggle while it sits in the glass on your counter! No fruit press? Just give that lemon a solid squeeze and to hell with those seeds! No barspoon? Just use a real spoon!

  Actually, that last one works just fine.

  And that’s my point — when it comes to making a great drink, you’ve never had anyone tell you which things you can safely sub and which things you’d better leave alone. It’s okay, though. I’m here now.

  Let’s start with the basics.

  4

  Glasses

  You drink drinks out of cups. Glasses, red Solo cups, chalices, ram horns, conch shells. Whatever you can find that works. If you’re wanting to get fancy, though, put the right drink in the right glass. There are always exceptions, but the glasses I mention here are generally going to get you through anything your weird neighbor Bill throws your way.

  There’s a chapter I’ll add at the end for the real fancy types that’ll explain all the different glassware you might want or need, and when to use them, but for a basic get-it-done-quick-and-cheap way, here’s what I would start with.

  Rocks or lowball glasses. These guys are the most-used glasses in the classic bar: a thick, heavy base that can take a bit of beating with a muddler, yet short enough that they’ll look great with any decor. Serve just about anything in these except frozen drinks and fizzes, and some of the fancier stuff. Think of these glasses when your drink is of the type you’d want to sip from then set it down.

  Highball or “tall” glasses. Talls are for, well, tall stuff. More drink than you can fit into a rocks glass, but often they’re for presenting the drink itself: maybe it’s more colorful, or built up, or there’s just a bunch of ice in it. Long Islands go here, as do the vast majority of your frozen (blended) drinks, and anything with a straw (again, there are always exceptions).

  Wine glasses. Well… you know.

  Pint glasses. The “workhorse of the glasslands,” I like to say. These babies can hold beer, obviously, but they’re also great for mixing drinks (and then pouring them into the proper glass). Have a few on hand for that never-graduated-from-college guy who’s “always just preferred a cold beer, ya kna, bra?”

  That’s it, really. Having these four styles on hand will get you through just about any scrape, whether it’s of the last-minute daiquiri style (use a tall) or a strange custom Sazerac your buddy who just got back from New Orleans requested (lowball!).

  There are more… of course. If you’ve got the money and the space to store them, these glasses make great additions to the enthusiasts collection, and will help you enjoy new drinks with the proper implements.

  Martini glasses. For… martinis. Anything that ends with “ini” goes here, except for bikinis.

  Snifters. If you’ve got something in the bar you haven’t tried, especially whiskey (or whisky), grab a snifter and throw some in. The tulip shape of the relatively small glass will allow the aromas to be concentrated up and toward your nose in the perfect geometrical arc of — yada yada. They look cool and make you feel fancy.

  Champagne flutes. If champagne’s your game, drink it in style!

  Margarita glasses. Ditto. I’m not big on having a lot of one-trick ponies in my collection (looking at you, butterscotch schnapps!), but if you’re a big summer-on-the-patio margarita fan, go all out and get some of the garish, ridiculous, over-the-top colorful glasses. Get different sizes. Hell, while we’re being sacrilegious, grab some plastic ones, too, because everyone knows Lucy’s going to pass out in the kiddie pool and drop hers all over the driveway.

  5

  Equipment

  You own a lawnmower because you have a lawn. You own a television because you’re not a barbarian. And you own drink-making paraphernalia because you have a soul.

  I’ve been in the business a long time, and I’ve seen just about everything there is, from the cute one-off novelty items like apple corers and spiral peelers to the elaborate, useless gimmicks like alcohol ‘vaporizers’ that allow you to inhale your drink — literally.

  I’ve used just about everything, as well, and let me tell you: you do not need a lot of fancy gear to make a fine drink. Case in point: Grab a glass from your cupboard and pop in a splash of bourbon. There you go, you mixologist you.

  Okay, maybe you want to make something a bit fancier. There are a lot of utensils, tools, and doohickeys that can help you get that fancy drink happening in your very own kitchen. These days you can buy centrifuges, blenders, sous vide machines, and chemicals for “washing” whiskeys and clarifying fruit juices. Are they fun? You bet. Are they necessary? Pffft.

  But whatever your fancy, whether it's keeping things classy and simple (my approach) or getting crazy with layered deconstructed Mai Tais with clarified mango juice-and-scotch floats, there's hope: much of the equipment you see at upscale bars is available on Amazon, a kitchen supply store, or even in your local grocery chain. Just start looking around — the well-known brand OXO, for example, sells a lot of this stuff in the cooking/baking aisle.

  There are few handy implements you’ll want to have (read: requirement!) and many more that you’ll want to have (read: birthday present!). Those that I require are listed below, and I’ll include a section on fancy implementations at the end of the chapter.

  For now, trust me. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. Most of the crap you see advertised is useless to the home bartender, and even for the experienced pro the tool is so specific it’s faster to just do the technique the ‘old school’ way, without the tool.

  So what should you go rush out and buy right this moment?

  Honestly? Nothing.

  Just read, enjoy, and make a list of things you could see yourself using. There are tools that I’d say are ‘requirements,’ yet you may not ever have a need for them because your friends, family, and guests don’t ever drink these sorts of concoctions. As you read and gain familiarity with these tools, though, you’ll start to understand their importance in the fully stocked bar and begin to develop a list of ‘prioritized acquisitions.’

  For example, swizzle sticks are hardly what I’d call ‘requirements.’ These little sticks, with smaller sticks breaking out from them perpendicularly at the end, are used for tiki-style drinks. You can make one of these drinks without a swizzle stick (I have, and do), but if you’re a big rum drinker and love mixing fruity rum-based drinks and punches, swizzle sticks can take your home-bar game up quite a few notches. And they’re cheap, too!

  So read this next section with the excitement of a young kid looking through a toy catalog, but also with the measured wisdom of the kid’s older sibling: you probably can’t get it all this Christmas, so choose wisely. Unless you’ve got enough money to drop on this stuff, focus first on making the purchases that will elevate your home bar the most, then branch out as you master their techniques.

  Section One: required tools.

  Your bar tools should all play a role in accomplishing one, singular role: making damn good drinks. When someone says a drink is ‘damn good,’ they are commenting on the quality of the beverage, and that quality comes from a few different factors:

  Taste — flavor, or what a drink is — comes from the non-alcoholic ingredients mixed into a drink, as well as from the booze `itself. That’s all covered in previous chapters and later recipes.

  The other crucial factors in making a quality drink come from the how — the method you’ve used to build a cocktail. And all of these factors are related to the tools and the techniques you’ve used those tools. Examples of these factors include the texture, the temperature, and the dilution. There are more, but these are the big ones to get right. As such, you can use many different tools to get you to the end goal. Some are more correct than others depending on the drink you’re making, and sometimes it’s your call.

  Just knowing these main characteristics of a good, high-quality drink will help you make decisions behind the bar.

  Shaker(s).

  If anything in this section is actually essential, it’s shakers. Preferably more than one, for reasons I’ll outline below.

  First let’s talk about what a shaker does. If you guessed, ‘shakes things,’ you are correct. But it really plays a crucial role in lowering the drink’s temperature to its properly chilled level, giving the drink the proper texture, and it dilutes the beverage. Both of these factors play a major role in the quality of the finished drink, as I mentioned above.

  You can get texture, temperature, and dilation correct using other tools, as we’ll see, but the shaker is probably the most-used implement in cocktail-building. It’s fast, brutally efficient, and — let’s not forget — it looks cool. Learn to use your shaker and you’ll never settle for a wine cooler ever again.

  There are two main types of shaker: the Boston shaker and the standard (more boring) shaker.

  Boston Shaker.

  The Boston shaker is really two pieces: a metal cup and a pint glass. The metal cup is larger than the pint glass, and when you build a drink and then place the metal on top and smack it down, then start to shake, the cooling that takes place in side actually shrinks the metal to form a seal around the glass.

  It’s fast, effective, and while it takes a bit of practice, I find that it’s my go-to shaker, as the two cups are easy to clean. They’re also not specific to the bar — just two cups. You probably have half of a Boston shaker assembly in your cupboard already — any pint glass will do the trick.

  But I lied. There’s really a third piece you’ll need: a strainer. More on that later. While I do think the Boston shaker is the go-to shaking apparatus, there is an inferior (and somewhat easier) option.

  Jiggers & Shot Glasses

  The Jigger is the awkwardly named little cup used to measure liquids. They typically come in .5, 1, and 1.5 sizes. If you can't find a set of jiggers, you can substitute a shot glass or glasses, but make sure you measure how much liquid each one holds (an ounce is two tablespoons, and there are three teaspoons to a tablespoon. See the Appendix for more measurements). Many bartenders swear by measuring their cocktails, other bartenders make subpar drinks.

  Don't run a subpar bar.

  Barspoon.

  There is a benefit to finding a decent barspoon — that long, twisted hunk of metal with a teaspoon at the end — but you don’t have to wait until you have one to mix drinks.

  A spoon works, or a knife, and hell, I’ve been known to grab whatever fork currently resides in the sink (and the food that currently resides on the fork) to twist up a drinkable tipple. But there's something to eat said for a long-handled twisted metal barspoon, with its oddly proportioned handle and tiny cup. It's far easier to stir more than one drink at a time with a real bar spoon than with anything else, though it takes a bit of practice.

  Muddler.

  This is a stick. That's pretty much it. We use them to gently crush the flavory goodness out of anything that needs crushing. Berries, mint leaves, bacon bits (I don't know, maybe?). Any stick will do, but over the years bartenders worried about the ergonomic downsides of pressing the sharp end of a stick against one's palm have adapted these sticks into fancy little fruit-crushing rods.

  The muffler, therefore, is now a widened wooden cylinder with a rounded end for muddling and a nifty smooth nubbin for palming. There are plastic models too, but if you want your muddler to be a classy showpiece go with a decorative wooden version that tickles your muddling fancy.

  Strainers.

  You'll need something to strain out those fruit chunks, mint leaves, and bacon bits after you've muddled and shaken them, and that's where a good strainer comes in. You've got a lot of good options to choose from, but I run a regular racket with just a Hawthorne strainer and a fine mesh strainer. Another option I like that's not technically a strainer is a citrus juicer. Stick half of a citrus facedown in one of these, squeeze, and delicious fruity nectar squirts down and out through a set of holes on the bottom — hopefully into your mixing glass.

  There are specific drink styles that “require” a certain type of strainer, and for good reason, but generally you can get away with straining anything with any type of strainer. When you're getting started, or aren't allowed to fill drawers with a bunch of drinking paraphernalia, go with a good ‘ol hawthorne.

  Section Two: fun toys

  What's a home bar without a little bit of you in it? These implements are zany, specialized, and sometimes downright weird, but they're the kinds of things that can start great conversations and make very interesting (and delicious) drinks.

  Swizzle Stick

  Commonly used for tiki-style drinks, the swizzle stick is a thin stick with a few tiny “branches” poking horizontally out of the bottom. Imagine a medieval torture weapon shrunk down and made out of lightweight wood.

  You “swizzle” a drink by rolling the swizzle stick between your two flattened palms.

  Want More? Read on by grabbing my guide to classy drinks here!

  Also by Nick Thacker

  Mason Dixon Thrillers

  Mark for Blood (Book 1)

  Death Mark (Book 2)

  Mark My Words (Book 3)

  Harvey Bennett Mysteries

  The Enigma Strain (Book 1)

  The Amazon Code (Book 2)

  The Ice Chasm (Book 3)

  The Jefferson Legacy (Book 4)

  The Paradise Key (Book 5)

  The Aryan Agenda (Book 6)

  Harvey Bennett Mysteries - Books 1-3

  Harvey Bennett Mysteries - Books 4-6

  Jo Bennett Mysteries

  Temple of the Snake (written with David Berens)

 

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