Have a Happy Homebar

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If you’ve got hosting on the schedule for this season, a well-stocked homebar is the first line of defense for stress-free festivities. Bar manager Jared Sadoian of The Hawthorne has some tips to boost your booze game and make your bar the hub of the party: from bottles, to bar tools, to the signature touches that will impress your guests. Below he lays down the essentials, and how to fake them if you come up short.

Shelve & Stock

The first step in playing home bartender is a dedicated place to store your supplies. Sadoian suggests shelving to add a layer of sophistication to your set-up, “Ikea has lots of great options for not much money. Having a dedicated area to keep your bottles and tools will make everything look more organized.” Once you’ve designated your drink-making space (whether it’s a bar cart, counter, or standing cabinet) you’ll want to keep it stocked.

12 bottle bar“Maybe you have a scattered number of bottles, maybe you have no bottles at all but family or friends are coming by next week and you need to scramble. What’s impressive?” Sadoain directs home bartenders to 12 Bottle Bar, a website and bar book that offers at-home cocktail-makers hundreds of recipes based on a curated selection of only a dozen bottles. Sadoian says to look for a “good range of liquor” when putting together your bar, with the caveat: “note that this doesn’t have to mean ‘a lot’ of liquor.” With your palate (and your guests’ requests) in mind, you can fill up your fresh new area with the liquors you’ll need. “And make sure you have some beer and wine – not everyone likes to drink liquor, or they might want to have a bit more staying power.”

Shake & Stir

Once you’ve got your bottles in line, it’s time for the business of cocktail construction. Like most art forms, drink-making requires tools: “A bare minimum setup is the following: 16-oz pint glass, 28-oz shaker tin, hawthorne strainer, julep strainer, twisted-handle bar spoon, and a set of jiggers (or a 2 oz. stainless steel OXO measuring cup),” which can be had from places like Cocktail Kingdom or, for slightly less, BarSupplies.com.

If you’re in a complete pinch (wallet- or otherwise), “a lot of things in your house can probably suffice,” says Sadoian. “I’ve shaken cocktails in a plastic pint glass over a solo cup before and chopsticks work well to stir cocktails pretty effortlessly.”

Serve with a Special Touch

lemon limeThe little things will be what elevate you from drink-maker to homebar hero. You can whip up some simple syrups pretty simply (substituting demerara sugar, for instance, or playing with ingredients like cinnamon and cranberry) or get playful with curled citrus peels. Sadoian’s hot homebar tip: “Fresh juice. Buy a citrus press and take 20 minutes before your guests arrive to juice fresh lemon or lime juice. It’s better than the bottled stuff, no matter what marketing material is on the label. Period.”

The final step of a successful homebar? Actually pouring the drinks. You can commit a couple classics to memory as crowd-pleasers or follow Sadoian’s lead and get the prep work out of the way with a punch. The party favorite “doesn’t really need a lot of fancy tools” and below Sadoian offers “a good recipe that will put most of your guests under the table” from David Wondrich’s book Punch. Party complete.

Chatham Artillery Punch
Ingredients
12 lemons
2 cups of sugar
750 ml Jamaican Rum
750 ml brandy
750 ml bourbon
3 bottles sparkling wine

Thinly peel the lemons—there should be little to no white pith on the peels—and put the peels into a 32 oz. mason jar. Reserve the lemons. To the jar, add the sugar, cover, and shake hard to distribute. Let sit for 12 hours (or more). The sugar-lemon peel mixture will be a nice liquid slurry at this point as the sugar extracts all the oil from the peels.

Juice the reserved lemons and add 2 cups of lemon juice to the jar, cover, and shake well until combined and dissolved. Strain out the lemon peels.

In a 2-gallon punch bowl add the lemon syrup, then a 750 ml bottle each of rum, brandy and bourbon. Top with 3 bottles of sparkling wine. Stir well to incorporate, then add enough ice to fill the bowl to the brim.

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