The Basic Ingredients for Cocktails (We Have Your Shopping List Ready)
Whether you’re planning an impromptu happy hour or find yourself hunkering down at home (ahem… thanks 2020!) we have your shopping list ready so you can make delicious cocktails at home. With a few basics on hand, you can up your cocktail game without upping the work.
Fill in this shopping list for your next trip to the store, and you’ll be set for your next stay-at-home happy hour!
Premium Spirits
As makers of premium rum, you might call us a bit biased in this department… We just can’t over emphasize how much the quality of the spirit matters to the quality of the cocktail. If you don’t like the flavor profile of a rum, no cocktail ingredients will cover that up.
We recommend stocking your home bar with at least one white rum and one dark rum. Platino is a great option for light, refreshing cocktails or cocktails that call for rum infusions. We turn to Oro, Exclusiva and Valentia for more alcohol forward cocktails. Having more than one type on hand expands cocktail options.
Fresh Citrus
Citrus is about so much more than the garnish. Fresh limes, lemons, oranges and grapefruit are key ingredients in so many classic rum cocktails it would be hard to count them all.
For starters, consider the Daiquri, the Mai Tai, the Rum Sour and the Mojito. And then there are Montanya originals, like the Elixir (a hot cocktail made even more fun with you “ignite the essence” of the orange rind), the Hoser which combines fresh lemon with real maple syrup, and the Mai Thai, which puts a fun twist on the Mai Tai by adding lemongrass syrup and velvet falernum to the fresh lime.
We like to keep a handful each of fresh limes and lemons on hands, and if we know we’re in the mood for a New Fashioned or a Hemingway Daiquiri, we’ll keep an orange or two and a grapefruit in the fridge as well.
Mixers: Soda Water and Tonic
Tonic isn’t just for gin, and soda water goes a long way in making a light, refreshing cocktail. We sometimes like to mix both with Platino to enjoy the flavor of tonic but reduce the sugar (as in the Sonic). With both on hand, you’ll be set for Mojitos too and even Montanya classics like the Kokomo (which came to one of our bartenders in a dream).
Montanya Distiller’s Tasting Room bar is full of fresh citrus.
A Handful of Your Favorite Ingredients
You don’t need to be an expert bartender to know what you like to drink. Use your own tastebuds to guide your shopping list, keep a few ingredients on hand with the flavors you love most.
If you love cocktails like the Piña Colada, or our Rio de Janeiro and Boat Shoes, you may want to have cream of coconut and a quality, organic pineapple juice on hand. If you lean toward refreshing cocktails like Honey Lemonade, the Mojito or the Kokomo, you may want to make sure you always have fresh mint in the fridge.
A great way to decide on these ingredients is to look up the recipes for some of your favorite drinks and see what they include (our online recipe collection is a great place to start).
Bitters
Bitters are flavoring agents that enhance a cocktail by adding a new flavor, marrying other flavors together, or balancing out the sweet or sour with—you guessed it—bitter. They’re traditionally made by pairing a neutral spirit with an aromatic botanical. Think orange peel, for example. The result is a liquid that packs a punch, so only a few drops are required.
Cucumber Jalapeño Bitters with the Cucumber Templar Rum Cocktail
We make our Cocktail Bitters at Montanya with our own rum as the base and layer in bittering roots and barks like wormwood, gentian and cassia as well as high-quality spices and fresh fruits and spicy peppers! We infuse them for a month or two before bottling them up for you.
We are particular fans of spicy bitters because our crew seems to love spicy things in general. Our favorite is Pineapple Habanero bitters—just five drops can transform a cocktail, adding a perfect exclamation point on the other flavors. We love to use this bitter with Tiki recipes and cocktails with fresh lime and fruit. We also love Cucumber Jalapeño Bitters for our more savory and herbaceous cocktails.
