Home bar basics

Buy the things you will use every time

A home bar does not need to look like a bar. Only a handful of objects get picked up on every drink; the rest can wait until something you want to make actually requires them.

A shaker, in one of two forms. The two-piece (Boston) shaker is a large tin and a smaller tin or glass, sealed by the angle of the join and the heel of your hand. It holds more, chills quickly and needs a separate strainer, and it takes practice to seal and to knock apart. The three-piece (cobbler) shaker adds a lid with a built-in strainer; it is easier to start with, though cold metal contracts and the cap sometimes seizes. Either makes the same drink.

A jigger improves a drink faster than anything else on the counter. Common sizes are 30 and 45 ml at the two ends, or 15 and 30 ml, usually with interior lines for smaller measures. Pour by eye and every round is a different drink, which leaves nothing to correct.

A bar spoon has a long twisted shaft and holds roughly 5 ml. Hold it near the top and let the back of the bowl track the wall of the glass, so the ice turns as one body instead of being churned.

Strainers come in two familiar shapes. A Hawthorne strainer has a spring around its edge and sits on the mouth of the shaker; a Julep strainer is a perforated bowl that locks inside the mixing glass. For anything with juice, mint or crushed ice, pour through a fine mesh as a second strainer — the texture is noticeably cleaner.

A mixing glass is heavy-based and wide-mouthed, with room for ice and liquid, and slow to take on heat from your hand. A sturdy pint glass will stand in.

A muddler presses the aroma out of mint and citrus peel. Mint wants light pressure and a twist; shredding the leaves releases bitterness and a green, grassy note instead.

A peeler for citrus twists, a juicer and a dry cloth round the kit out.

Ice is doing two jobs at once

Ice chills and dilutes at the same time, and the two cannot be separated. A drink that gets cold gets weaker; the only question is by how much.

Shape sets the pace. The larger the piece, the smaller its surface area relative to its volume and the slower it melts — a large cube suits something you sit with, like an Old Fashioned. Crushed ice does the opposite, cooling and watering fast, which is why a Mint Julep and a Bramble use it and frost the outside of the vessel quickly.

A widely quoted figure is that somewhere between a fifth and a third of a finished drink is melted ice. That is not a mistake, it is part of the recipe: the same measures poured without ice would usually taste harsh and oversweet.

The practical rules are short. Fill the glass with ice rather than half-filling it, since a little ice melts faster than a lot. Keep the ice clean and odourless — a freezer's smells travel into the glass. And chill the glass with ice and water while you gather the ingredients, then tip it out before you pour.

Measures and ratios

Read a recipe as a ratio and it becomes portable. A sour is roughly two parts spirit, one part citrus, one part syrup; a Negroni is one part each of three things. Hold the relationship and you can still work the drink out after the ingredients change. The templates are set out in cocktail families.

Measure with the jigger level and at eye height, filled to the point of spilling. Topping up is easier than pouring away. Squeeze citrus close to the time you use it; juice loses aroma and shifts in acidity as it stands. Bartenders check the balance with a straw before a drink goes out, and correct sweet with sour or sour with sweet, one adjustment at a time.

Glasses are not only decoration

The glass decides how long the drink stays cold, where the aroma goes and how much reaches you in a mouthful.

• Cocktail or martini glass: V-shaped and stemmed. A drink served up has no ice to keep it cold, so your hand stays on the stem. The wide mouth lets aroma go quickly, which is why these are made small.
• Coupe: also for drinks served up, with a bowl that curves back in at the rim, so less of it ends up on the floor than with a V.
• Rocks glass: short, heavy, wide — built around a large cube.
• Highball and collins glasses: tall and narrow, with little surface area, so the bubbles last.
• Flute: narrower still, for sparkling drinks such as a Mimosa or a Bellini.
• Copper mug: the traditional vessel for a Moscow Mule; metal conducts quickly, so it is cold in the hand immediately.

Whichever it is, a chilled glass is better than a warm one.

The seven techniques

• Shake anything with juice, syrup, egg or cream: hard, with ice, about ten to fifteen seconds, until the tin frosts. See the Daiquiri.
• Stir drinks made only of spirits and aromatised wine: twenty to thirty seconds with ice, for a clear result. See the Dry Martini.
• Build in the glass when bubbles are involved and nothing needs mixing hard. See the Gin Tonic.
• Muddle in the base of the glass before assembling. See the Mojito.
• Layer by pouring slowly over the back of a bar spoon, floating on differences in sugar density. See the B52.
• Blend with crushed ice for a frozen texture. See the Pina Colada.
• Dry-shake egg-white drinks without ice first to build the foam, then shake again with ice. See the Pisco Sour.

Six drinks to start with

Between them these cover the techniques you will use most, and their ingredients overlap:

• Gin Tonic — built; practice for ice and pouring.
• Old Fashioned — sugar, bitters and one large cube.
• Negroni — equal parts, the stirred drink that is hardest to forget.
• Daiquiri — three ingredients, with nowhere for a bad balance to hide.
• Whiskey Sour — the same shape with a different base, with or without egg white.
• Mojito — muddling, a long glass and soda in one drink.

The rest of the recipes are in the cocktail search, and the vocabulary for describing them is on the flavour tags page.

Never drink and drive.