Everyman's bar: a few necessities, a guide of sorts --- #1

[Snarf]

So I've gotten a couple requests from 2p2 friends to give out this information. I figured I would make it a thread rather than an email to those people that talked to me abou it.

So I'm sorta knowledgable about alcohol and bartending and having supplies for a home bar.

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To clarify a couple things at this point:

I am NOT a bartender, nor have I ever been, nor have I ever taken bartending classes. Nor am I an expert on alcohol, not by any means.

So feel free to ask me whatever questions you have about this post or about making a home bar. However, if you're trying to intentionally stump me and show me up because you are very well versed in these things...chances are good that you will succeed in both your goals.

I'm just a guy who has taken a little time in their life to learn some of the basics. I've focused on great alcohol at good prices, so this is a "cost-effective" guide.

The beauty of this guide, is that everything I will recommend you to buy won't cost you that much money or take up that much space in your house. If you have space on top of your fridge, on a counter or in a cabinet, you have enough space available.

This post is designed towards people who love alcohol and love drinking but sometimes may feel lost as to what to have around and what to make.


All that out of the way...let us gogogogo


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The Normal Person's Everyday Bar: A guide of sorts
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Partly because I'm lazy, and partly because I enjoy cost-effectiveness. I always buy the BIGGEST thing of (non-perishable) juice/alcohol I can find. Its cheaper in the long-term and makes it less likely I'll run out in key circumstances. Additionally, I have to make less runs to the store for supplies.

"Handle" = a bottle of alcohol that has a handle on it, I buy these 100% of the time when possible

Often/Usually a local grocery store has cheaper alcohol than a liquor store. FYI.

Also, when it comes to juice/mixers - I usually buy 1 or 2 more than I think I need. Back up. Keeps the out of stocks and store runs to a minimum.

SUPPLIES:

Pitcher.
This is an optional one if you only ever plan on mixing drinks for 1 or 2 people and having only 1 drink at a time. If you plan on drinking multiple drinks or mixing for multiple people, I suggest making a pitcher, and then simply pouring out from there. Personally, I use large ones that sit flat and have a spigot.... but I make drinks for a dozen people who plan on drinking all night... So something much more like this will probably work for you:


Bottle Stopper
Sometimes you lose bottle tops. Sometimes you may want to open up some wine. You can find these for like less than a $1. A must have.


Corkscrew
To open wine with obviously. This kind is the best/easiest.


Speed Pourers
You may or may not use these, and as such they are optional. They are incredibly cheap and sometimes very handy, so I do recommend having a couple around just in case you want them. They're designed to control the flow of the alcohol coming out of the bottle. In addition to making it just a 'neater' pour in general (for us sloppy people) you can use it to measure alcohol amounts by measuring the amount of time you pour.






MIXERS:

You can get as cheap or as expensive as you want here. Personally, I go cheap - generally speaking. To give you an example of what I'm talking about: Orange Juice is a significantly tastier mixer than Sunny D. However, Sunny D keeps better, doesn't have to take up space in the fridge, and is much much cheaper. So, I buy Sunny D.


FROZEN JUICE CONCENTRATE
I don't generally mix w/frozen concentrate. However, I do always make sure to have 2-3 in the freezer. It may happen sometime that you want to make a drink, and don't have any other mixers around. Thats when you break out these bad boys. That barely take up any room in the freezer and are great backups.



Orange Juice
I already explained my tendency to buy Sunny D above. Whatever you want works, though, really.

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Juice
Whatever you want works here. Personally, I like the blends of different fruits. Orange-Strawberry-Banana, things like that. This is just sort of trial and error as to what tastes you like and what mixes well with what. The key sort of fruits I like to look for are strawberries, bananas, mango and guava. (Though not necessarily all together.) Fruit punch works pretty well, too. My favorite mixer, FYI, is a juice called, "Cherry Burst" by Welch's. On the cheap end, "Tampico" works surprisingly well.
(Note: Grape juice actually isn't the best mixer, IMO, but this pic serves well to visualize diversity/choices.)





Sprite/Lemon Lime
No, I'm not joking. Its my secret ingredient.
Coke
obv



Lemon and Lime Juice and Grenadine
Many women/families will have lemon juice around anyways. Between that and the fact you won't use it that often, I wouldn't worry about buying it. I do however like using lime juice from time to time. It can really change the taste of a drink single-handedly or just enhance the subtle flavorings of a drink with a lot of ingredients. Grenadine can be fun/good to add to things. I have some creative uses for it, but a more basic use would be to add it to a rum and coke. Thus giving you a rum and CHERRY coke. The brand, "Rose's" depicted in the image is good, but so is anything, really.




ALCOHOLIC MIXERS
These are quite optional, and if you are a complete mixed drink noob, I'd skip these to start off, but eventually you may try one or two, expirament and see how it goes.

Triple Sec
I can't really explain what this tastes like. Its sort of a clear taste, but a very noticable one at the same time. Its a main ingredient in Long Island Iced Teas, if that helps/gives you any ideas. Something about triple sec really helps drinks get that extra 'kick' alcohol content wise.


Shnapps
You can buy whatever flavor you want to drink/mix with. For mixing purposes, I have only find peach shnapps to have any value. This picture is an easy recipe for an alcholic peach tea, but also the only one I could find that showed the GOOD peach shnapps. The other kinds than this just don't compare, unfortunately. (This is more $.)
BTW, I would def by the name brand shown here.


Amaretto
This has an almondy taste and is VERY strong. You never need to add too much of this to a drink. I screwed up a lot of drinks when I first started trying to use this. It only takes a little.





ALCOHOL
Now to the fun part. Honestly, all you really NEED for a basic bar is Vodka and Rum. If you want to expand from there I'd get something like Southern Comfort or Jack Daniel's or Jim Beam. Drinks like Gin or decent scotch are love/hate and up to you. (Scoth usually straight, gin usually w/tonic or vermouth.)

VODKA
You want good vodka? Don't want to spend a fortune?
Svedka.
Vodka has a taste # rating scale, and Svedka is like right up there w/the best....for a fraction of the price.
Its good, trust me on this.


Rum
Let me break this down.
Gold Rum = great with Coke, bad with juice
Silver Rum = good with anything

If you want to get multiple handles, you can. However, one will suffice. If you get one, it should be silver Rum. As far as silver Rum goes...Your basic two options are Bacardi or Captain Morgan. Stores generally only carry the gold Captain Morgan, and I had to look around in many stores to fina a local one that carries silver Captain. If you can find it, it costs about $5 more than the Bacardi version, but is soooo worth it. Personally, I can't stand the Bicardi silver Rum anymore...Though you may not even notice the difference enough to care. If you get gold rum, I would definately get the Captain. Also, if you want to venture out past the two bottles of rum, some flavored rum can be good to mix with. Bacardi has some good flavored rums, shown below. Also, I'm a big fan of Malibu's latest line of flavored Rums: passionfruit, mango, and the such. Yum. BTW, their coconut rum is alright, but doesn't mix well.







SCOTCH
Johnny Walker is good. They make about 10 different qualities/types of varying prices. It doesn't have to be horribly expensive.

Whiskey
Personally, I love Jim Beam. Jim + Coke = my favorite drink
Most prefer Jack Daniels
Also, Southern Comfort is great and a much different taste than either Jim or Jack. (Soco + Coke is GREAT)

Obviously you don't need whiskey around, but I find its a nice change of pace drink. Throw in the occassional whiskey + Coke or whiskey + other stuff, its nice to have around.


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Supplies: One time expense for the most part. You can do this part for less than $10 honestly.

Juice: Replish as needed. Maybe $3 for backup frozen concentrate. Whatever you want past that. Maybe $20 total.

Alcohol: Obviously this can get expensive, but if you just get 2 handles. 1 rum + 1 vodka = around $40=$45. Handles are generally around $20 depending.


Part 2 to come in the future will be all about very simple but yet very tasty mixed drinks you can make very ez like.

[[Phill]]

Excellent post.

You da man. This will save me some reseach come Xmas hols in the coming weeks.

Btw, would you bother getting a shaker or just stir all your drinks?

What about ice? How would you go from a plastic tray of ice to crushed ice required in certain cocktails, such as a Martini. Tea towel and rolling pin?

Looking forward to the recipe post [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[jgunnip]

I don't read around here much anymore but great post Snarf!! Soco and Coke is very underrated. Dr. Pepper works great too.

Another simple drink is raspberry vodka lemonade. Chicks love this.

[[Phill]]

Which reminds me, how good is a Brass Monkey (of Beastie Boys fame).

Its Bourbon and Sunny D (if memory serves) and ive wanted want just to make the point, i just never remember it.

[TheNoodleMan]

tl:dr
Is there something in here that explains why this is in STTF?

[Snarf]

Phil S,

As for ice - you'd have to be pretty well versed for types of ice to matter all that much. Bags or trays, whatever. As far as crushing it goes...hm... I don't crush a lot of ice, I would probably just simply push the "crushed ice" button on my fridge. Past that I would probably wrap up the ice in a towel and then mash it with something. Basically what you suggested, yeah.

As for shaker, I knew it was an void in my post, but honestly - I have one and I've used it in the past, and I will use it sometimes in the future...but its not a big deal for me. Its overrated, IMO. (Though its good for shots.) I make most of my drinks in a pitcher and stir, yeah.



As for the drink suggestions made so far,

I can only request that we hold off on those for the recipe post. Though I have no expectation of that actually/completley happening. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

BTW, I've never made a brass monkey, but I will both look it up and make it and let you know. I imagine it having and odd mis-matched taste that you will love or hate. (and most would hate) just a guess, though


Snarf

[Snarf]

[ QUOTE ]
tl:dr
Is there something in here that explains why this is in STTF?

[/ QUOTE ]


first paragraph:


[ QUOTE ]
So I've gotten a couple requests from 2p2 friends to give out this information. I figured I would make it a thread rather than an email to those people that talked to me abou it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should've clarified if its not obvious, all my 2p2 friends are STTF/MTT.

I considered posting it in OOT or maybe even X-posting in OOT.

FWIW I wouldn't be upset at all if it got moved.

[TheNoodleMan]

If you can't explain what triple sec tastes like you aren't qualified to makes this post.

Here is a hint:

[Snarf]

[ QUOTE ]
If you can't explain what triple sec tastes like you aren't qualified to makes this post.

Here is a hint:


[/ QUOTE ]


really? I don't agree....maybe sorta....


Honestly I haven't had triple sec around the house in ages.

[kjellstrom]

wow! thanks so much, frans! i looove it! i am soo clueless about all this stuff and will come back to visit often [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] although, morgan already thinks i'm a drunk, so he might secretly ban me from this thread! [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

** love the cute little pictures for that added ooomph! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]