How to Start your Home Bar | How to Drink

this episode is about the basics of starting your home bar i get i asked that question a lot where should i start and there's questions i get about the bottles and about the books and about the equipment about the techniques and just all that stuff and a lot of times i don't have a one-size-fits-all answer but the stuff that i think i have a one-size-fits-all answer too it's going to be in this episode let's do it it's a different episode there's no cocktail in this episode so buckle up i'm going to talk for a really long time i think probably the question i get the most often is what bottles do i need to build up a bar i think honestly that is the toughest question for me to answer i also think it's kind of a situation where people are asking maybe the wrong question though certainly if you wanted to cover yourself for most classic or pre-prohibition cocktails for example you could get by with a bottle of whiskey maybe go with a rye if you're only going to buy one a bottle of gin look for a very middle of the road london dry certainly you're gonna need angostura bidders and really probably also in orange bidders and also pay shows pay shows pay shows for orange bitters i like many i like reagan's um you're gonna want a sweet vermouth probably you'll also need a dry one though maybe you will need a blanc uh rum hugely varied but let's say you're gonna rough it when you're starting it out you will only need a single bottle and then you're gonna need the popular classic modifiers uh curacao absinthe and maraschino vital for all of those pre-provisioned cocktails and if we're sticking to the classics you're lucky because you can skip the vodka entirely but that is a terrible answer because what i just told you to buy is a fairly massive bar and a considerable investment and if you're just starting things off it's a mistake but i think if you backed up and reframed that question about a different topic it would become immediately apparent to you how absurd it is on its face imagine you were talking about food instead would you ever ask someone hey hey what ingredients should i buy so i can just sort of make basically anything i hope not because that leg of land that you'd pick up might be waiting for its turn an awful long time in the freezer you you're gonna buy the ingredients for dinner you plan to cook and your bar should work the same way i i think that instead of asking what bottles should i start out with you should instead pick one or two cocktails that you like best and just specifically buy the ingredients you need to make them and start your bar essentially around a single spirit i think there's a book it's like the five bottle bar or something like that or that's a concept i think you should have one bottle bar i think you should start with a bottle of for me bourbon i think that's that's a one bottle bar and then when you start to expand instead of going for if you were a whiskey feller and you're starting with whiskey instead of moving i need a bottle of gin uh-uh i don't think so i think first you expand for modifiers go for vermouths go for absinthe chartreuse maraschino maybe even pick up a couple of those before expanding to another base spirit why because the rate at which you're going to go through those modifier bottles is going to be a lot slower if you're going to build cocktails around classic two-ounce pours uh a 750 milliliter bottle of spirit only has 12 and a half cocktails in it but you're gonna get 101 quarter ounce pores from a bottle of chartreuse or something like that for example and then when you do buy that next base spirit instead of adding one or two cocktails to your options you're actually adding something like 10 or 20 because you've already got the modifiers right think about it like you're doing horizontal integration or vertical integration before you move horizontally but your vertical work uh carries over on those horizontal columns right let's move on though because i think non-alcoholic ingredients however are where i think you're going to be rewarded by kind of going all in sooner rather than later these are the things that are going to let you pour 20 different cocktails using a single bottle of spirit and they're generally cheaper but they they don't last forever i always keep fresh citrus oranges lemons limes although at the moment there's a listeria outbreak which is a problem but generally speaking when there's not listeria outbreak i will keep fresh oranges limes and lemons all the time and i buy gobs of the things it's annoying because they will go bad if you don't use them you can't freeze them so that ruins them uh and you can't juice them too far in advance if you're trying to make the best possible cocktails maybe a couple of hours but they they are pretty low cost all things equal at least here in the northeast where i'm at mint you could keep in a refrigerated herb storage device like the one i used to use in new york but if you've got halfway decent light buy the little plants in the pots at the grocery store and put them into pots and plant them it'll propagate and grow like crazy if you have good light um they're tough to kill if you have bad light you grow mint vines it looks awful and it's a mess and they they don't produce enough leaves fresh eggs are the same thing you're going to want to have fresh eggs on hand for sours and on one hand i would tell you to skip the fresh eggs because while very nice you don't need an egg white for a whiskey sour but on the other hand that egg white in the whiskey sour really makes the drink in my opinion and i think it's the kind of thing that's going to cement your love for mixology and that is my goal here i want to infect you with this i want to get you bit by the bug i think egg white whiskey sour might be the drink that does it you're going to need syrups sugar doesn't go bad so as long as you've got the storage space for it you can stock up buy in bulk and save money if you're only going to buy one sugar get plain white but if you can i would get some good demerara as well like florida crystals i make all of my syrups in two parts sugar to one part water and it is really that simple just get yourself a saucepan add two parts sugar one part water heat it till it boils and let it cool and bottle it i always make mine in that two to one ratio because it won't go bad this way a two to one syrup is shelf stable it can't grow mold it's the sugar content of water so high that is toxic to anything that would take hold in there one trick that i do do i always pour boiling water into my glass storage bottles before i put the syrups in them you know boiling water in swish it around rinse them out to help sterilize them some people like to throw in a little vodka i can't imagine that that's doing much maybe if you put it in first swished it around and dumped it out but then i don't yeah maybe maybe maybe that some people add like a shot of vodka or something or ever clear to their syrup in the hopes that it makes the syrup sterilized if you do the math on that you are adding such a minute amount of alcohol to it that it can't possibly do anything it's a wives tale but rinsing the bottle in alcohol i suppose that would do something boiling water is fine though and it's free basically by doing it in two to one they don't take up room in your fridge if you are working on a lot of cocktails and you have to buy 30 or 40 limes and 30 or 40 lemons every time you go to the grocery store like i do your fridge space is paramount at some point you might have to buy multiple fridges at some point you might have a youtube show and have fridges and freezers just all over the goddamn place but that's a whole other problem uh you do want to think about that i think and if something could be made shelf stable so i could just put it in a cabinet or leave it on a counter i'm going to do that it's a win-win you just leave them out they will sometimes crystallize but you can fix that by reboiling them or even if you have the patience for it just put them in the sink and run hot water from the tap over it for a long time it'll melt all those crystals back in yes the two to one ratio is sweeter by about one-third versus a one-to-one you could compensate by using just a little bit less if you want but i'm pretty sure all of your pre-prohibition ie pre-refrigeration cocktails calling for simple syrup are calling for two to one ratio simple syrup because how the hell were they keeping it fresh otherwise i think that's what they were doing you know and that's true too if you look at historically we have much more sophisticated palettes than uh older time periods that people liked things sweet they wanted that magic good delicious sugar just gooping up out of stuff okay but they had less access to it so it was when they could get it they wanted it if you really want to keep it old school you could pick up some gum akashia online it's pretty cheap it's going to last an extremely long time because you will use it in really small amounts in a batch of simple syrup to make gum syrup it's not necessary in some drinks yeah it can definitely alter the texture quite a bit but you won't miss it terribly if you're trying to keep it simple gum akashia is like your 100th problem it is there's so many things that you got to straighten out before you go there if you're really just interested in that sort of thing go for it it's like i said it's not going to break the bank i don't think if it does you should probably have a different hobby now if you've got sugar and you are familiar with making simple syrups you can take just about any fruit or herb and make a syrup with it pineapple syrup lavender syrup raspberry syrup rosemary apples whatever you know some people have asked me about making a mint syrup it's the one that i think does not work perfectly well something about the oxidization of the mint it tastes skunky to me so i keep my mint fresh if you like a mint syrup and it works for you go for it i don't think mint syrups up very well use the exact same procedure for making a normal simple syrup just add a quantity of the ingredient you want to infuse into the pan while you're boiling it up how much is going to depend on the ingredient you are infusing but keep in mind that you can always do a second infusion with more stuff you know you can make your syrup be like this isn't pineappley enough take that syrup put it back in the pan put more pineapples chop them up blue boil it up good to go not that it's not rocket science this is simple stuff there are a set of not-so-simple syrups that at some point though maybe not right away you're going to want to make they are kind of essential to bar tending mixology grenadine or joe and ginger i have covered all three of these in other episodes and i'm going to link to those right down below and they've all kind of got their own variation on the process mainly it just comes down to the best way to extract flavors oils fats whatever from the ingredient you're looking to infuse but if you look at what's really going on in them they are just infused simple syrups of those three i think you're going to see the most mileage out of grenadine followed by or joe and then ginger but that also kind of depends on what you like to drink i like a lot of tiki drinks so for me or joe might actually see more use in my bar than than grenadine grenadine has a lot of uses and it makes a great you know not alcoholic you know add a little lime juice grenadine and club soda you'll have the best especially it's homemade grenadine oh delicious just the best shirley temple up next bar tools wanna thank house for sponsoring this episode so thank you house house is a new operative produced by a husband and wife previously i did have an opportunity to sample their two year round offerings bitter clove and citrus flower both quite good this is called peach passion fruit and i gotta tell you i'm kind of in love with this stuff that's so good it is tart and bright and citrusy and right in your face and then really carried through with just a perfect balance of peach and passion for your flavors i mean it's kind of hard to pull the two apart from each other there's already a spicy element in there too it might be all spice or cloves i'm having a hard time placing it but it's definitely there the overall effect is great though and honestly i kind of wonder what this would do with a tiki drink i think you could use this as a tiki ingredient i like it on the rocks like this or combined with club soda to make a really great low abv spritz one neat thing about house is that because of their lower alcohol content they can actually deliver direct to you so that's what they do check out their website in the link below for the whole story on house but you should know the first 100 people to jump on that link can get 10 off and free shipping on their first purchase check them out and now back to the show thanks house so as far as tools go you're gonna need some kind of a spoon um some kind of a thing to stir drinks in a shaker and a strainer yes your spoon could literally be a kitchen tablespoon and you could stir the drink in any glass you've got lying around but there's a reason that there are specifically designed tools for these jobs you know a real bar spoon has this kind of spiral thing going on around it that makes it much easier for you to stir and stir faster okay it's easier to handle the overall length helps there too uh the balance point just really helps you kind of work a mixing glass is less necessary i think than a real bar spoon i'm literally unboxing this firefly mixing glass i have not yet even opened it i am a lazy man you know what makes a good cocktail mixing glass it's got a heavy base right it's got a nice pour spout that helps you not spill which i'm famous for it's got that heavy base so you can kind of just let it sit on its own and do this do you need to spend money on this absolutely not you do need a shaker and the short tin of your shaker will work just fine right and about that so a shaker is pretty much unavoidable you will kind of need one i and most bartenders i know don't really love cobbler shaker that's the style shaker you might picture if your references are mainly microsoft clipart uh because they stick together they're a pain to get open i mean i've literally smashed mine with a hammer to get it to break and then they have an integrated little strainer kind of stinks you know um a boston style shaker which is usually a pint like a glass pint glass and then a metal tin is better and then you're going to need once you go to one of those a separate hawthorne strainer which is again better than the integrated strainer in a cobbler shaker um you will save money on a cobbler shaker but you're going to kind of hate working with it and i think that frustration about that kind of stuff could put you off in subtle ways ways you weren't even really articulating or thinking about like just like ah man bartending is a pain in the butt um having good tools makes it easier you can also by the way and that hawthorne strainer will work for your stirred drinks yes technically you're supposed to supposed to use one of these um slotted spoons actually it's it's a a julep strainer that's an affectation that's a flourish you don't need to at all this thing does the job just fine okay i personally prefer these dual metal style boston shakers i think most bartenders i know do as well why well there's no glass to break first off the other thing i love about them is that both sides have a little bit of give both sides flex on this right whereas with a glass thing the glass doesn't bend at all it makes it much easier to get a good seal and easier to break that seal when you're trying to pour um the way a shaker works you know when you've got ice in here you know what i just did you're not supposed to do you're not supposed to pound the tins it gets colder as you shake it so the air here is colder cold air is denser that means there is negative pressure inside it's trying to pull everything in that vacuum will hold this thing shut and it can be really powerful but if you can actually flex both halves it's really easy just give it a good hard squeeze and little arrow get in there neutralize the pressure it'll pop right open um what you'll see a lot of us do is we do this kind of side smack that does it and then you get it open these are uh coraco they are a japanese manufacturer weighted bar tins they are sold by cocktail kingdom they're a little bit pricey compared to some other options but they're gonna basically last forever i've had these for like a decade if you want to save a couple of dollars barfly has a variety of options available and they are just fine and the one thing i will say you about this is when you're working with these always keep it like this way right so that the big tin is on the bottom is pointed that way i feel like maybe i have seen people work with it this way i think i'm doing it right this way though because if you do it this way when it if it does happen to break and it really it shouldn't it'll go over your shoulder it won't you know attack your guests you're gonna need something to measure pores with if you've got a pyrex measuring cup hanging around your kitchen and it's got the uh the measurements you can need on it you could just use that that would be fine you don't need to really over think this um a [ __ ] is nice to have though and i do prefer ones with a i got three here on standby with a one ounce side and a two ounce side one ounce two ounce one ounce two ounce right that's just what i like i like a one and a two and then it's gotta have gradations inside of it for one and a half on the big side and then a half and a quarter on the small side that's pretty standard stuff with these barfly has some extremely nice jiggers available i actually really like this one from them it's a japanese style double cone and it's very thin great easy to read gradations inside it feels good in the hand i like it a lot this is a more traditional style japanese with a rolled edge that's just what they call these cone-shaped ones they're called japanese things they're great because they're very easy to direct to pour with right if you ever see the ones that like the kind that they sell as like a bar kit like you know at williams and sonoma or something like that with like a handle on the thing that's very mid-century style stay away from those they suck it's just like you don't need a handle there just gets in the way personally i love the look of a leopold style [ __ ] the double bell shape here i just like the way it feels in my hand i like the look of it everything about it um they can be you know some people say that they're less accurate for pouring they're a little bit more wonky because you've got a fatter wider surface lately i've been using this one on the show a lot though i just really like the way it feels in my hand these guys list basically forever i kind of go through them because if i drop them on the floor and i get a nick on the edge that little nick will hold on to like a piece of a bar towel or something like that like a thread and then in close-ups it looks like junk so that's why i go through them but normal people should last you forever they made a stainless steel you know do you need dash or bottles nope these things you don't need these these look cool as hell they're beautiful but you absolutely do not need them bottles of bitters you're going to buy are going to have dashers built right in called a woozy bottle you do need a knife but i assume you have one i'm whatever knife you have is fine this little fork at the end is i mean i don't know what the heck you're supposed to do with that knives are nice if you can cut with it it's fine you will need a peeler i really like a y-shaped one and most people i know it's also called a swiss style it's just for the kinds of things you're using a peeler for like not you're not gonna peel a potato right with this you could you're not peeling cucumbers before you make a salad or carrots or whatever like that you might want a sideways handle but for what we do you want to pull a piece of a citrus off and i'm doing it with a lime right now which is uncommon but not unheard of you know it's just it's just easier to work with this shape it's just right it fits in your hand better it makes a nice thin cut they're fast and easy to clean and really cheap they are usually high carbon steel so don't put them in a dishwasher because they will rust like crazy do you need a channel knife sometimes i use those to pull those long thin like ropes of peels you don't need one but if you do get one i strongly prefer this style which cuts see the channel there is perpendicular to the handle this says made in france and you can cut like this sideways i find that to be an action that works for my hand and my technique a lot better than some of the other ones i see where you drag a lime is not a great candidate for channel knifing but we managed anyway and i honestly i think that's it as far as gadgets and doodads you may or may not need in your bar do you need wine preserving stuff i don't know you know what i get a lot of traction out of um bottles you should have bottles to store stuff in if you have spirit bottles that are disused you can wash them out and use those and then i like these little silicone bottle toppers i got you can buy like 10 for a couple of bucks on amazon i'll include a link below that's really handy for just storing stuff infusions syrups whatever and i prefer glass for syrups and things like that i the old style like you know speed rail juice bottles with the pour tops on them they're plastic they're fine for working under a bar in a high volume environment but like they don't look classy i don't have another word for it you're going to need ice and first i have to say use the ice you have don't over think it if it smells bad figure out what is stinking up the ice in your freezer and get rid of it but i have seen uh people advise that you rinse your ice off when before you use it uh if it comes out of a freezer it's been in there for a while before you use it it'll rinse off that outer layer of ice it's got some stink in it freezer smells at some point you're probably gonna want to upgrade your ice everybody does and when you do there is no shortcut the way to get really clear ice is through directional freezing freezing from one direction to the other and creating a waste block of gassy water or ice that you throw away boiling double boiling using distilled water filtering it a thousand times none of that matters we have 14 pounds on average per square inch of air pressure around us right at all times and no matter how clean your water is and sure use the cleanest water you can it has dissolved gases in it from the atmosphere and when you freeze it the gases they get trapped they form bubbles those bubbles make cloudy not clear ice certainly the cleanest ice you have even in an ice cube tray will make clearer ice but it's not going to make clear ice there's a difference camper english great blogger has done so much for the community as far as i know he kind of pioneered using a system of coolers inside of your freezer to achieve this so the idea is that you insulate all but one side only one side is open to the freezer it cools from that direction down the way a lake would freeze i'm going to provide a link here to his blog all about that the basic idea is that the as ice freezes it squeezes all these dissolved gases and impurities out of the water and typically in an ice tray ice will freeze from all directions in so all that stuff is trapped in the middle of the cube if you freeze in one direction you move all that stuff to one side you can either stop it before it's all the way frozen or cut it off with an ice saw or a knife or whatever people ask me a lot where i get my ice from i think it's because i did an old episode years ago talking about the camper english method about how to make clear ice that is not where i get my ice for the show from though it the amount of ice that i go through on here is enormous it would be a herculean task for me to make the amount of ice i need uh for the show using a technique i get my ice from a shop in queens called hundred weight big ice they provide lovely fancy ice to bars in and around new york city is actually 100 weight spun off of the ice program at a bar called dutch kills their ice is frozen in 300 pound blocks using a machine called a klein belt and then it's cut on a food safe bandsaw same process klein bell ice is used for making ice sculptures so climb bell too the way it works it freezes ice directionally but from the bottom up so all those impurities and gases they just escape outward into the room uh and then there's no bad ice that has to be cut off or removed you just get a huge pure block of optically clear ice i get a lot of questions about how do you crack ice so good with a spoon like that and i'm gonna tell you one every ice cube i use on the show is basically the exact same size weight and density which means it has the same kind of frequency harmonic frequency for cracking uh i got used to it and now i know exactly how hard to hit it it's just like an instinct to tap this ice and have it shatter the other thing is it comes directly out of a freezer that is running well below zero um and is super brittle so it doesn't take much effort at all for me to just i mean look at that it's already shattered entirely right one shot doom then people ask me if you ever you ever really crack your hands your knuckles no not really i've never done it that i know i don't swing this thing that hard i promise you don't judge yourself based on this because if you went through the amount of ice i go through you would get very good at this very fast it doesn't take a tremendous amount of practice the editing makes me look good too i think the last topic to cover in terms of starting out is books it's a question i get a lot what books do you recommend for the home bar as per the usual i am going to semi-dodge this and say it does depend on what you want to make but for me the two books i revisit the most often are david wunder's imbibe and dave arnold's liquid intelligence these are basically the bookends for me of the entire spectrum of mixology imbibe is david wondrich's dissemination of the first bartender's guide ever written that we know of jerry thomas's how to mix drinks from 1862. a fun bit of trivia about the jerry thomas how to mix drinks 1862 guy when dale degroff was just starting out he asked his bar manager how do i get better what do i need what book should i buy and the guy sent him oh go pick up a copy of jerry thomas's book from 1862. and he hunted all over new york to find a copy of course it had been out of print for about 80 years it was like an unheard of book but he got his hands on a copy that's how dale de graaf became dale de graf supposedly that's the legend that dale has repeated a few times so um imbibe is david wundrich's kind of interpretation of the guide by jerry thomas david here modernizes the measurements and ingredients so they will make sense to us because in uh cherry thomas's time he talks about ponies and wine glasses which what do you what does that mean what are the ratios between those two things he has the answers here he talks about the history of every drink in the book compares to how jerry thomas and his contemporaries and descendants all handled the drink separately and kind of helps you thread you know hey for my money this is the best combination of historical elements for this drink in the holy texts of mixology this is essentially an annotated version of the old testament the historic information is in here as well particularly if you're interested in pre-prohibition cocktails it's invaluable this is liquid intelligence by dave arnold it is an awkward oversized book but it is a great book this is the other end of the bookshelf for me the other bookend of the spectra of cocktail making it is filled with delicious cocktails of his design as served at the various bars he's headed over the years mostly poker and dax but it is also a textbook on the science and techniques of advanced gastro mixology how to use liquid nitrogen how to spherize ingredients how to clarify juices incorporating a centrifuge in your bar using rapid infusion and other tricks that you can do with a nitrous charger it's all in here plus the chemistry and math you need to figure out the brix rating of an ingredient uh the ph of passion fruit or you get the idea these two books are really essential to me the delta blues of cocktails science future forward cast you know industrial rock of cocktails i don't know there's a lot of really great cocktail books out there do not feel like this is a definitive list and the only books worth owning these are just the books that i use the most in my mixology i've been yammering on about this for a while now this episode was entirely about how to kid out and start a home bar and i hope i've answered that question if you like this kind of thing um let me know and maybe i'll do a follow-up i don't know maybe something about basic techniques to practice or simple tricks that kind of thing i'm greg this is how to drink the show about making cocktails and how to drink them if you wanted some more of me i'm on twitter at how to drink with a number in the middle i'm on instagram at how to drink with a number in the middle the number two the numeral two um i am on patreon at patreon.com how to drink if you wanna help me make the show i am on twitch at twitch.tv slash greg from htd doing live stuff here from the bar with you we chit chat answer your questions dole out unwanted advice all that good stuff it's a blast i play some games sometimes doing some live action tt rpg stuff tabletop role-playing games for those of you who are not in the know we were playing d d for a while now we're moving on to cyberpunk i'm a big nerd if you're new to the channel and i have a second channel at the moment too called h2d2 so if you like the live stuff but miss it it's there um that's it that's this episode just talking about bar starting starting a bar hey if you like this episode and you want to know how to make some drinks though here are some other episodes that i think will help you out i hope you'll check them out thank you so much i will see you soon with another episode of how to drink

Channel: How To Drink

Views: 627,071

Rating: 4.9777293 out of 5

Keywords: htd, how to drink, mixology, tape brothers territory, alcohol, liquor, bartending, mixed drinks, how to, how to make, spirits, bitters, drink, cocktails, cocktail, classic, recipes, basics of mixology, bartending basics, how to bartend, how to mix drinks, bartending 101, mixology 101, mixology masterclass, bartending masterclass, how to start a home bar, starting a home bar

Id: JTFSajVnDoc

Length: 28min 4sec (1684 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/fivefootmama]

How does this have no comments? Bartender wife - happy-drinking husband - we have a little home tiki bar and I have got the hubs totally hooked on this channel. Absolutely love love love every episode of this.

We also just keep a running Drive file to run on a tablet at our little home bar that includes drinks for all the items we regularly stock. This includes the mocktails our younger son makes at the bar as well.