DRINK
The Art of the
Bar Cart WORDS BY JEAN SCHINDLER
Not going out to restaurants much these days, but still craving a fine cocktail from time to time? Perhaps you want to make cocktails for your lockdown pod. And now you’re staring at all those bottles left over from parties (oh, days of yore!) – they’re not much use, and a pox on whomever brought you mango-flavored rum. Time to get serious about stocking your liquor shelf. When I first became serious about booze, I went gin-mad. I purchased bottles promising strange flavor profiles without so much as a sample, including one that was a radioactive shade of fluorescent yellow – I couldn’t resist the label, which promised the color came from “the post-distillation maceration of the rare botanicals.” I ordered cinchona online and learned to make my own tonic water (do it). I acquired a gin-infusion kit complete with dried juniper berries (don’t do it). Meanwhile, my bar cart became unidimensional, and when I’d lure friends to visit by offering to make cocktails (using my fabulous collection), it didn’t always go well. “But it’s all gin,” someone always observed with a tinge of dismay. “No, it’s all different kinds of gin,” I’d reply, as if they were wrong. “I don’t like gin,” another would assert. “No, you just haven’t had the right gin,” I countered, still in correction mode. Don’t be like me. Your crew might vote you out of the pandemic pod. Learn from my experience: If you’re ready to build a home liquor collection from scratch, here’s my recommended game plan. 34 | SEPTEMBER 2020
The Big Five Start with a bottle or two from “the big five:” vodka, whiskey, gin, tequila or rum. These can be consumed neat, or serve as the foundation for almost any cocktail. I vote you get one clear and one brown: gin and bourbon.
Salt and Pepper Bitters are the salt and pepper of the cocktail world – a few dashes, and the recipe is complete. These tinctures are highly concentrated infusions of herbs and barks and other “secret” ingredients – and usually not tasty on their own. Everyone should have a bottle of angostura – a few dashes on a sugar cube dropped in a glass of champagne is “Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s” level of classic. Also, mandatory for an Old Fashioned.
Major Mixers While the “big five” are A: drinkable alone, and B: the base of any cocktail, mixer booze is generally neither – but they are necessary to build a cocktail. The two most important in this category are vermouth (dry and sweet) and triple sec (orange liqueur). Get those. With the bourbon, sweet vermouth, and angostura, you’ve got a basic Manhattan cocktail (though you really need a maraschino cherry to top it off). P.S. If you get a really, really good vermouth, it’s worthy of savoring over ice on its own.
