Now that drinking at home is not only
a lot of fun but also the socially responsible thing to do it's probably
time to make sure your home bar is up to scratch. We've seen a huge upsurge in
people interested in making cocktails at home and lots of people are asking what
are the best spirits to buy. Well let's take a look. The most important thing to
remember is that it is your home bar, there's no point filling it with things
you don't like just because they're cool or because someone tells you to. So this
is just a guideline to help you build on according to your own tastes. I'm going
to take you through building your home speed rail. That is, some go to spirits
that are great neat and for spirit mixers and also in cocktails. And also
which flavour modifiers to invest in to allow you to make a huge range of
delicious drinks at home. Plus I've thrown in a few hints tips and easy to
make home ingredients that will really elevate your home mixing game. I've
suggested widely available products with a few local heroes thrown in for my
Melburnian friends, but if you have a local bottle shop and you can support
them, then please do and they'll have lots of great suggestions about products
local to your area. If you find any gems let me know in the comments, it's always
great to hear about new things. If you'd like to know what tools and equipment
you should invest in then here's a video about that, but for now let's get into
the good stuff. I'm not a purist when it comes to spirits, if you want to use your fancy single malt in a cocktail then absolutely do it and now is definitely
the time for small luxuries. In my house we had an Australian single malt Bobby
Burns the other week and it was delicious.
But you also definitely don't have to break the bank to stock your home bar. So
here's my pick for six versatile bottles to have in your speed rail. By the way if
you are new to this channel thank you for watching, we've got heaps of content
for anyone who shares my love of all things bar and booze so why not hit that
subscribe button and the little bell and you'll be notified whenever a new
episode comes out. Starting with vodka. It's a very clean
spirit, it's usually used as a crisp base just to carry other flavors but vodka
and gin being quite light white spirits are actually quite interchangeable and
bright citrusy drinks. So I would go for a vodka with a good amount of texture, so
something like Belvedere because it is made from rye it has a really nice spice
and will stand up just as well in most recipes which call for gin and that
opens up a plethora of other options for you. If you need any ideas then take a
look at my five great gin cocktails video. Locally I do really
love Archie Rose vodka because it has a nice creaminess and almost a little bit
of a mint and apple aftertaste, which does make it an awesome substitute in
the Eastside. Gin is a tricky one for a list like this because there's such a
wide range of styles available now my go-to because it works well in both
boozy stirred down drinks and bright citrusy ones is Plymouth. So it's very
similar to a classic London dry-style so that juniper and citrus are the main
notes rather than all the wild and wonderful botanicals you can find in New
Wave gins, which don't get me wrong are absolutely awesome but don't always suit
every drink. This one doesn't jar in anything but it is a little less dry and
a little bit softer making it just a bit more easygoing and it's not going to
stick out like a sore thumb anywhere. In Australia I like to reach for
Never-Never for classic cocktails as it has the beautiful Juniper backbone that
you're looking for. Now I've said it before and I'll say it again, good
tequila does cost money. If it's not something you're able to invest in then
that's totally fine but in that case probably just leave it out. Margaritas
are amazing but definitely not worth the headache of using low quality tequila
and the Mexican agave growers will thank you too. You definitely want to look at something that's 100% agave and Blanco tequilas are generally the most easily used in cocktails as they're clean and fresh.
Obviously if you love tequila then feel free to look at some Reposados and Añejos for sipping. I find it hard to go past Arette,
it's gorgeous to sip by itself but also brings really fruity and herbaceous
notes to mixed drinks as well. Again rum covers such a
broad spectrum of styles that it can be hard to narrow down. If you can only
have one rum something like Diplomatico Mantuano all is great. So
it's a blend of column distilled and pot distilled spirits, so sort of some
lighter and some heavier, so it makes it nice and medium bodied. It's heavy enough
to stand up in tiki drinks like a Mai Tai or Pina Colada, but it's also not
gonna completely smash in and overpower something lighter and fresher like a
Daiquiri or a Mojito. That said if you are a rum head then
it's probably worth dropping one of the other spirits or just treating yourself
and getting one light and one dark rum for versatility. For a white rum I really
like Plantation 3 Star because it's really big and flavorful and I love
Pussers for a dark rum because it's just a big whack of funk and smoke. Now this could be controversial but my suggestion for American whiskey would be to go for a
rye over a bourbon because it's such a different flavor profile to the blended Scotch I'm
about to suggest. Most American whiskey cocktails to be honest or not super
subtle so you're looking for a big punch of flavor so Knob Creek rye is perfect
as it has a higher alcohol content to carry through that spice but not a
massively high rye content so it's still quite smooth. Otherwise The Gospel
Rye is a bangin' Melbourne local which I generally turn to at home it is a little
bit drier, excellent in a Manhattan. Blended Scotches are generally the way
to go for cocktails as they're much easier on the pocket and more easily
mixed than single malts, which always want to be the star of the show.
Dewar's 12 year old is sweet and sherried so works really well for that
smooth and rich flavor you're looking for in most Scotch cocktails and as I
say it can also plug the gap for bourbon in a pinch. Starward Two Fold is also a
great go-to for any Australians wanting to support local and it is actually
available in some places in the states now too. It's a lighter and brighter style
which goes really well in a whiskey sour otherwise if you do prefer a bit of
smoke in your whisky cocktails then it's hard to go past Johnnie Walker Black Label for the price point. Now that you have your
speed rail sorted it's time to work out what you're gonna mix your spirits with.
These secondary ingredients are known as modifiers and can be combined with your
base spirits and hundreds of different ways the sky is actually the limit. Again
skew it towards your own palate, if you hate bitter things but love berries then
skip the Campari and treat yourself to a good quality Crème de mure or
Framboise, so like a blackberry or a raspberry liqueur but, with these six
bottles or maybe seven you should be able to build a well-rounded and
sophisticated home cocktail list. So bitters are really the bartender's
secret weapon to elevate drinks to another level. Think of them as salt, so
without them drinks can be perfectly fine but with them they really sing you
can have so much fun with bitters nowadays and since you only use a couple
of drops in each drink but they can transform flavors they're a really good
investment, much cheaper than buying a hundred different spirits. But Angostura
is the classic here and for good reason it's unique formula adds amazing depth
and complexity and it goes really well in almost anything so from old fashions
through to tiki drinks and sours it only really falls down in very delicate
drinks such as a martini, as it does overpower them.
So if you can stretch to another bottle then I would recommend orange bitters
for some delicate floral notes. And I actually often combine both Angostura
and orange bitters for the best of both worlds. Amari are a category of bitter herbal aperitifs that you may not realize that
you need but you do. They create balance and interest in all sorts of cocktails.
I find that Amaro Montenegro where as well in almost every recipe which calls
for an Amaro, so for example it can easily be substituted for a Amaro
Nino in a Paper Plane or Amer Picon and a Brooklyn it obviously won't taste
the exact same but it can achieve the same balance. It's also a delicious digestif just on the rocks with a wedge of orange or in a spritz. Although technically also an Amaro Campari is easily the most famous member
of this family and it deserves its own place on your bar as it has such a
unique flavor. It's irreplaceable in the entire Negroni genre so things like a
Boulevardier or Rosita it can also be used in surprising and fun ways like in
the tiki sour Jungle Bird where it's shaken up with rum lime and pineapple
juice. That said Campari can be a little bit love it or hate it is it's
pretty astringent whereas Aperol has similar bitter orange flavors while
being a little softer and sweeter, so if that sounds more your style and
substitute that in. And of course nothing says summer like a Campari or Aperol spritz in the garden! Now one of the most commonly used modifiers in classic cocktails is triple sec or Curacao they are both orange liqueurs and there's no
legal difference between them it's more of a question of style and history so
they can easily be interchanged. Regular viewers will know that I'm a little
obsessed with Marionette Curacao which is made here in Melbourne because
it's so zesty and fresh, but Cointreau is an excellent widely available option.
Just pay attention to the sweetness of your chosen orange liqueur,
for instance when I'm using Marionette I often have to use a little more than
the classic recipe or add a little sugar as it's less sweet although that is why
I like, it I kind of like a dry finish. One fun tip though is that you can
substitute apricot brandy and basically any recipe that calls for Curacao and
voila an equally delicious but completely different drink. So I love the
Toreador, which is a margarita but with the Curacao swapped for apricot
brandy it turns out that tequila plays just as well with stone fruit as it does with
citrus. Vermouth is where the maybe seven bottles come in. Honestly if you want to
be able to craft a really wide range of classic cocktails you need to both a
sweet and a dry vermouth, it can't really be interchanged for each other. That said
you can take a middle road and that middle road is called a Bianco or a
Blanco or Blanc vermouth depending what country they come from.
Some of them are technically not a vermouth, like Lillet Blanc, but they are in
the same wider category of aromatized and fortified wines. Have a look at my
video all about them for a deeper dive on the subject. But these wonderful
things are delicate enough not to overpower white spirits and martinis but
they also have enough weight in spice to stand up to darker spirits in Manhattanesque
numbers. They can also be used in shaken drinks like the Corpse Reviver number
two or the Scofflaw. So it is a white vermouth but it has a higher sugar
content and is a little less delicate and spicier than dry vermouth. So it also
means that once opened it lasts a little bit longer. On the bar I would obviously
never do this but honestly I've had the same bottle in the fridge for a months
without it completely falling over at home. Obviously if you are sticking with
sweet and dry and using them in cocktails rather than sipping on the
rocks then the standard big names like Cinzano and Martinis serve really
well they are after all what most classic cocktails would originally have
been made with and they do come in little half bottles if you're worried
about not getting through them quickly enough. Remember that vermouths are still wine so they do need to be kept in the fridge
once you've opened them to stop them going all yucky and raisiny. Look it may not be the most conventional home bar essential but hopefully if you've made
it this far then you'll trust me with this one. I could keep going on about
naming different liqueurs and so on but they all kind of do the same thing.
Sherry is not a replacement for anything else on this list instead it adds
another dimension to flavor combinations we already have. So you can jazz up a
martini with a sherry rinse or add a dash in your Manhattan for some dryness and
complexity and to clarify I am talking about dry sherry here not like sticky
sweet PX. If you tend to drink lighter spirits I would go for a Fino Sherry
which is Gin's best friend and if you prefer darker spirits and an Amontillado
is great and it goes really well with rum and whiskey. For use in cocktails
something cheap and cheerful like Tio Pepe works really well they do both
Fino and Amontillado. It won't get lost. Also Gonzales Byass or Lustau are good
options as well. So there you have it, 12 ish bottles to use as building blocks for your home bartending career and once you start thinking of them as
building blocks it's really easy to play around. So for instance you could start
with a Gin Sour, so you've got gin, lemon, and sugar, so your base spirit, your sour
and your sweet. Then you could progress to a White Lady which is gin, lemon
Curacao and egg white. So you're just changing out the sweetener from sugar to
orange liqueur and then next maybe try a Pegu Club,
so that's gin, Curacao, lime and bitters. So you're changing up the sour element
and adding bitters for extra depth and then next in your journey could be a
London Calling, So gin, lemon, sugar, bitters and dry
sherry. Practically the same as a zingy gin sour but with an added
dimension of interest from the Sherry. So you can see they're all in the same
wheelhouse but definitely unique. That's enough to get you started but stick
around if you'd like to know some easy tips and tricks to expand your
repertoire even further. Now I can completely understand at this point
you're not wanting to spend any more money on your bar but still wanting to
introduce other flavours, so enter syrups and juices. Some can be bought for a
fraction of the price of spirits or liqueurs and some are really simple to
make at home, for these ones I will add the recipes below and on my shiny new
website if you want to check that out. So sugar syrup is a necessity for a home
bar. You can buy it, Monin's is always a good option for bought syrups but it's
literally just one part sugar to one part water and mix it over a low heat
until it's combined. It's fun to play around with different sugars as well so
for instance using cane sugar or a Demerara sugar which is a much darker
sugar and therefore has a much deeper flavor to use alongside dark spirits. Now the most commonly called for syrup in classic cocktail recipes like in one
of my favorites, the Scofflaw, is grenadine. It's a pomegranate syrup and
the juicy fruitiness combined with a high acid make it way easier to balance
with almost any spirit than most other syrups. You can buy it and if you do please make sure it's a good quality one so
something like this little crafty Jack Rudy number or Crawley's is a more
readily available one and not a Day-Glo red cordial, but it's also really easy to
make so you just need to add one part pomegranate juice to one part sugar and
simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes until it's a loose syrupy consistency for
added depth of flavor go a little bit middle-eastern and some orange blossom
water and pomegranate molasses are really awesome in there but they're
definitely not necessary. Honey is nature's own sweetener as they say so it
does make sense that it's delicious as a sugar replacement and cocktails. One of
my favorites to make at home is a Bees Knees, which is basically just a Gin Sour
with honey, but it feels a little bit fancier and you almost always have honey
in the cupboard. It can be a little bit difficult to handle though. I usually sit
my honey in a warm water bath until it loosens up a little bit and then mix it
one part honey with one part hot water and this just makes it way easier to
pour in control measurement so you have something this kind of consistency
rather than a natural jar of honey. Now honey and ginger go hand in hand and
they form the basis for probably the most famous modern classic the
Penicillin, however it's quite fun to have them both separately and then
combine them when needed and that way you can use them independently as well.
So, the easiest way to make ginger syrup is to slice up a root of ginger and
simmer it in sugar syrup for about 15 minutes and then leave the ginger in
there as it cools. The more ginger that you use and the longer that you leave it
the spicier it gets. I like to leave it in overnight for a real kick, and this
works really well to liven up Tiki rum drinks, you can then just mix it one to
one with your honey water for a honey and ginger syrup. Alternatively, if you're
not too bothered about having separate syrups then just
simmer the ginger directly in the honey water. Now passionfruit, similarly to
pomegranate has such great acids that is almost always a welcome addition to
cocktails. In fact my friend who judges a lot of cocktail competitions that say
that he doesn't think it should be allowed anymore because it just
automatically makes everything delicious. The great thing about it is you don't
have to do anything with it you can just stick it straight in the shaker. You can
obviously use fresh but you can also get tin passion fruit at most supermarkets
regardless of the season and then you can just have it in your cupboard for
whenever you need a little tropical pop in your life, even if it's just mixed in
your G&T. I always say that rules are made to be broken and I have to say that an
anomaly to the fresh is best rule is pineapple juice. I actually find that
most recipes which call for don't really need the sweetness from long-life
pineapple juice. It's also a natural foaming agent so something like a French
martini doesn't get it's frothy head from egg white but actually from shaken pineapple juice. It's also used in a thousand tiki drinks and it's much cheaper
than a flight to the Caribbean. There you have it.
Everything you need to take your home bar to the next level. So now you know!
