5 Essentials for Your Home Bar

From virtual happy hours to liquor store delivery, recent times have changed the way so many of us enjoy happy hour. Judging from the photos we see on social media, home bartenders everywhere are rising to the occasion with picture-worthy cocktails.

In fact, one of the most popular items in our online store has been a Home Bar Essentials Kit as newly minted home bartenders get up to speed. We can understand why. There are so many great items out there, it can be hard to know where to start. Here are 5 essentials we recommend stocking in your home bar:

Montanya Distillers’ Rum Sour in a Rocks Glass

Good glassware

Let’s call it like it is: a glass of wine isn’t quite as good in a tumbler. The same is true for spirits. The presentation and the beauty of the cocktail are part of the enjoyment. And in a home bar, having a few different glasses on hand will go a long way in elevating your cocktails:

• rocks glass—a short tumbler (think Old Fashioned)

• coupe glass—a stemmed glass with a broad, shallow bowl

• highball glass—enough said

Have one or two of each on hand, and with a little garnish, you’ll be adding new life to your home cocktails.

Shaker

There’s a reason Bond prefers his martinis shaken, not stirred. A shaker is great for gathering, chilling and blending the ingredients in most great cocktails. (At Montanya, we do avoid shaking anything that contains bitters, vermouths, amaro liqueurs, or other aromatics.)  

Montanya Distillers Steamroller in a high ball.

Montanya’s Scarlett O’Hara in a coupe glass.

Jigger

They say the ingredients make the meal, and the same is true for spirits. A cocktail is only as good as the precision you use when you measure the ingredients, and it’s all too easy to ruin a cocktail by over-pouring or throwing ingredients out of balance. A jigger keeps you honest (as does a good recipe book… check out our recommendations below)!

Montanya bitters add flavor without sugar.

Bitters

Don’t be afraid. These flavoring agents aren’t necessarily bitter. At Montanya, some of our favorites are citrus, cucumber jalapeño, and fig & cinnamon. Whatever the flavor, bitters are the easiest way to balance a cocktail that’s tasting too bitter, too sweet or generally out of balance—just choose a bitter with a complimentary flavor profile. We also use them to add a burst of flavor to a cocktail without adding a lot of sugar or watering the cocktails down.

Recipe Books

Some home cooks can whip up a meal without a recipe—then there are the rest of us. A good recipe goes a long way. The same is true for cocktails. A great recipe book will help you add variety to your home cocktails, make happy hour a lot more fun, and impress your guests. We love so many it’s hard to name just a few, but for starters check out these great books:

• Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum and the Cult of Tiki

• The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World’s Great Drinks

• Shake: A New Perspective on Cocktails

• The Bartender's Guide to Rum: Classic and Modern-day Cocktails for Rum Lovers

• Rum: The Manual

We’ve also been getting a lot of great feedback to our fave, Elevated Cocktails, by Montanya owner and CEO, Karen Hoskin. With her recipes (and some great photos of Crested Butte), it’s like having a little bit of Montanya Distillers in your living room.

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