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teaberryblue) wrote2009-07-04 11:36 pm
The Care & Feeding of a Bar
Cecille asked me if I would take a photo of my liquor cabinet/bar.
So, I thought that in addition to taking a photo of the whole thing, I would take photos of what is inside it so that those of you who would like to learn to mix drinks or who already enjoy mixing drinks can get a feel for what I do.
This is the contents of my bar!
All the Liquor in My Bar
But I’m going to go through it and explain to you what-all this is.
1) Vodka
Vodka
Vodka is a very clear liquor that is made via a multiple distillation process, usually from grain or potatoes. It is very high proof and generally has no flavor other than tasting like alcohol.
I am not a fan of vodka, which is why you will see there are only three vodkas in my bar. Vodkas are normally used in cocktails that aren’t supposed to “taste like” alcohol, which, to me, defeats the purpose of drinking alcohol. There are also a lot of flavored vodkas available, but many of them taste like artificial flavoring, and that’s not my idea of a good drink. I keep vodka in my bar for friends, but that’s pretty much it– although true infused vodkas (vodkas that are used to soak herbs or fruit and then strained to get the flavor) are often yummy.
2) Gin
Gin
Gin is also a very light-colored liquor, but it has a bit more flavor than vodka…enough that different gins will have very distinctive tastes and you will want to use different types of gins in different kinds of drinks– the gin you use in a martini is not the same gin you want in a gin and tonic. Gin is, like vodka, usually made with grain, but it is made out a distilled grain liquor that you add juniper and sometimes other herbs to, and then re-distill again.
Gins are usually classified by their “dryness:” a dry gin will have very little juniper flavor. Less dry gins will taste like juniper, herbs, or citrus fruits. I keep a variety of these, ranging from a classic London Dry like Broker’s to sweet gins like Tanqueray Rangpur, which tastes like lime or Desert Juniper which tastes like juniper berries.
3) Bourbon and bourbon-style whiskey
Bourbon
Bourbon is probably my favorite liquor ever. It is a corn-based distilled liquor aged in charred oak. Technically, a bourbon whiskey MUST be made in the state of Kentucky, but there are a lot of good bourbon-style whiskeys that are not made in Kentucky, so I am including those here. I love bourbon because it is a bit sweeter than most whiskeys and has a fuller body. A lot of the drinks I post in my blog are bourbon based drinks made with fruit– it is great with peaches, cherries, and other berries. Bourbon is also the chief ingredient in a Mint Julep.
My (and the) standard bourbon to have in a bar is Maker’s Mark, which is famous for its red wax label. I always have at least one bottle of this, and then several other bourbons, some of which I use in mixed drinks, and others which I just drink on the rocks.
4) Scotch
Scotch
On the very far other side of the whiskey spectrum is scotch. Scotch is a whiskey made from malted barley and aged in oak. You don’t mix scotch. I mean, you could, but scotch is meant to be drunk neat (in a glass, room temperature, with no ice) and savored for the complexity of flavor. My mom is the real scotch drinker in the family– I like some scotches, but a lot of them are very peaty and taste like dirt to me. It is much drier than bourbon and is generally very light in texture but very strong.
5) Other Whiskeys
Whiskeys
There are many other whiskeys in the world! You will want some of them in your bar. My collection of whiskeys includes Irish whiskey, Canadian whiskey, American whiskey, and Southern Comfort, which is a whiskey-based liqueur. It i basically bourbon soaked with fruit and spices plus sweetener (traditionally honey). Different whiskeys are needed for different types of drinks, as they will have different flavors based on what type of grain they are originally made with!
6) Rum
Rum
Rum is possibly the most variable of all liquors, and thus you may, once you start expanding your bar, want many types of rum. Rum is a liquor made from molasses which means that is it generally the sweetest of all the liquors I have mentioned here. It also comes in many varieties, but there are three basic ones: white, or silver rum, which will be the “cleanest” one, gold rum, which will be a bit sweeter and have a bigger variety in tastes from one to the next, and black rums, which are the heaviest and sweetest. All three are appropriate for different types of cocktails and recipes. Many rums will have a citrusy flavor to them as well as the sugary flavor they are known for. In a well-stocked bar, you will probably want a silver rum, a gold rum, and a black rum.
7) Cachaça
Cachaça
Cachaça is basically like white/silver rum, except that it is made from cane juice instead of molasses and therefore has a distinctive flavor. It is not a bar necessity but it is the primary ingredient in a Capirinha, which is one of my favorite drinks.
8) Tequila
Tequila
This one is kind of embarrassing, but I put it in just for the sake of completeness. Tequila is a
Mexican liquor made from agave, a kind of succulent plant. Like rum, it comes in gold and silver varieties, with the silver having a cleaner flavor and the gold having more complexity.
HOWEVER, the only tequila in my cabinet was Jose Cuervo. While Cuervo is probably the best known tequila in the US, it is also fortified with a bunch of additives that can give people massive headaches (it’s sort of like the MSG of tequilas). So I highly recommend going with a different brand, especially if you are primarily drinking margaritas or other sweet mixed drinks, as sugary drinks are more likely to give people a hangover in general.
9) Pisco
Pisco
Pisco is a liquor distilled from GRAPES! It is a South American liquor which is most widely used in a Pisco Sour. This isn’t super essential for most bars but I like Pisco Sours a lot so I tend to keep a bottle of it.
10) Liqueurs
Liqueurs
Now we are getting into the silly stuff! Liqueurs are pretty much a very wide variety of liquors that are generally sweet and strongly flavored. I have liqueurs that are flavored with everything from elderflower to biscotti! So you can get a sense of the very wide range they cover. You will probably want a bottle of Triple Sec, a popular orange-flavored liqueur used in margaritas and other mixed drinks, in a started bar. People often like to have peach schnapps and sour apple schnapps, but I have neither as I prefer to use fresh fruit in most of my fruit-flavored drinks. If you want to know more about liqueurs, please just ask me and I will be happy to offer advice and suggestions.
11) Liquorices
Liquorice
Okay, okay, liquorices are a subgenre of liqueurs, really, but they are a big one so I am putting them all together. These are very strong herbal liqueurs that taste of– you guessed it, black liquorice. There are a lot of different types of liquorices. In my bar, I have Pernod, Sambuca, Ouzo, and Aqavit, but you have probably also all heard of Absinthe, which is another type of liquorice.
Liquorices are sometimes served straight in shots as aperitifs, but I tend to use them very sparingly, sometimes just to coat the glass of a drink before serving it.
12) Bitters
Bitters
There are a lot of kinds of bitters, but the main description of bitters is that they are an herbal concoction usually used in small quantities as a flavoring in a cocktail. Here are two very different kinds. Angostura bitters are alcohol-free and are stored in the refrigerator; Campari is a bitter liqueur. There are several other kinds of bitters, notably orange bitters (which I have and forgot to take out of the fridge) and Peychaud’s bitters, which are almost impossible to get outside of New Orleans and are an ingredient in the Sazerac cocktail. Bitters are pretty awful on their own, but are delicious when mixed in sweeter cocktails. Campari is one of the main ingredients in a Negroni, which is one of my favorite drinks.
13) Vermouth
Vermouth
Vermouth is technically a kind of wine. It is a wine that is soaked with herbs and comes in two categories: dry white and sweet red. There is also “extra dry” vermouth. Dry white vermouth is an important ingredient in a Martini, while sweet red is an important ingredient in a Manhattan.
14) Brandy
Brandy
Brandy, like scotch, is a sipping drink. It is a distilled liquor made by distilling wine. There are a few drinks you might mix it with, but for the most part, you are going to drink it neat. My advice for brandies is to have a good brand for sipping and a cheap brand (like the Korbel here) for mixing. Brandy is great poured over desserts and in eggnog or as a little splash in a sangria, but you don’t want to use the fancy stuff for that!
15) Apple Brandy
AppleJack
You can get a lot of fruit-flavored brandies, and I prefer these to Schnapps for mixing. Mostly, I keep apple brandy on hand, but you can also get pear, peach, and various berry-flavored brandies. They are generally made with the fruit, rather than simply flavored like Schnapps is, and are really great if you soak fruit in them before using them to mix. I use apple brandy in my green apple flavored drinks– I usually soak apples in with apple brandy and sugar as a base.
16) Dessert Wine
Dessert Wine
Port, Madeira, and Sherry are the three big dessert wines. They are very thick, syrupy, and sweet, and many people sip them straight, but they are also amazing poured over desserts and as mixers. I like mixing dessert wines with rum or whiskey, and I use them in a lot of my hot winter cocktails.
And here is what it looks like when it is all in the cabinet where it belongs. The only liquors that don’t go in the cabinet are the scotches, which are out in the living room, and the brandies, which are on top of the cabinet. Those ones are really my mom’s liquor, though, and she drinks them more as after-dinner sipping drinks.
The Bar
I will say that this is 1) an expensive hobby and 2) something I have been working on for a long time. Liquor lasts for a long time so specialty liquors don’t need to be purchased too often. The only ones you will be replacing frequently are the ones you like and mix the most often. Types of liquor range in price from $15-16 for a bottle of many liqueurs to $70 and sometimes even higher for a bottle of good scotch. My recommendation is to buy small bottles of staples to start, see which ones you like best, and then purchase those in the biggest bottles you can get, because it will be cheaper in the long run. Pretty much the entirety of my liquor collection comes in the form of gifts– this is what I get as Christmas and birthday presents! Don’t feel like you need to have as much liquor as I do to learn how to do this right– to start off, just having a bottle of gin, bourbon, rum, vodka, vermouth, bitters, and a couple of liqueurs or other things that look exciting to you is a good place to start. You should be able to get together a good bar to start experimenting for about $200. If you buy little bottles to start and see what you like the taste of, you can do it much more cheaply– many liquors come in taster bottles that cost under $10.
If anyone has questions about starting your own bar or about mixing drinks, I would be happy to answer them! I intend to follow this up with posts about some of the other items you should have if you want to get into bartending as a hobby– there are accessories, non-alcoholic mixers and ingredients, and glasses you will want to have as you progress!
Mirrored from Antagonia.net.
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Also, I've always kind of wondered about the differences between different types of liquor such as scotch/brandy and never really knew what vermouth was, so this was very educational! Oh, and Jose Cuervo being "the MSG of tequilas" probably explains why I got so very sick the last time I drank. Ugh.
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And yeah, Cuervo has some nasty side effects for a lot of people. What you need to do when you look at tequilas is check how much of it is really made with agave and how much is additives. You want pure agave if you don't want to have a headache-- of course, pure agave is way more expensive, unfortunately. But different people react differently to the different additives-- my liquor store owner says that Cuervo tends to affect the most people the worst, and he won't even let me buy it from him.
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AKA LET ME KNOW NEXT TIME YOU'RE HOSTING A PARTY CAUSE I AM SO THERE!I'm actually a big vodka fan--the nice thing about vodka (and clear rum) is that it's least likely to give you a hangover the next morning, as opposed to other liquors not to mention beer and wine. (In moderate amounts, that is, obviously if you drink enough of anything you'll be sick!) But I've found that sticking to vodka- and rum-based drinks leaves me feeling fine the next day, as opposed to headachey and nauseated. Also, I don't care much for the taste of alcohol so I personally prefer being able to down fruity drinks without having that taste there :/ And really, that's how you can tell quality vodka from cheap shitty vodka--the good stuff you can't taste, the bad stuff makes me gag.
Tequila, on the other hand, is TEH EVIL and I avoid it outside of margaritas. Ugh.
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I know that probably sounds judgmental, but liquor to me is about the complexity of flavors and people should not drink solely to get drunk. If they don't want to taste the liquor in a drink, then they're better off drinking a non-alcoholic mixed drink, of which there are many amazing possibilities, than drinking alcohol at all. I don't like the idea of people using alcohol as a social lubricant because that's when alcohol drinking starts becoming irresponsible. If you drink alcohol because you really love it, then you are not going to get drunk or hungover because you end up treating it like a special treat.
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I'm actually happiest with a nice glass or two of wine, and I drink it because I like the taste, texture, and how well it meshes with food. But since the post focused on hard liquor, so did my comment.
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As for the burny thing, no good liquor is going to burn, unless it's scotch, especially if it's mixed properly. I'm not talking about the burny taste when I talk about the taste of alcohol-- I am talking about the juniper notes in gin, or the caramel flavor in bourbon, or the citrusy flavors in rum. To me, I would much rather have a liquor that has a flavor than something that costs $50 a bottle and tastes like really smooth water. A good drink won't sting no matter what you're drinking-- if it does, it's a bad drink.
If you like wines, I would probably recommend trying bourbons. They have a lot of similar characteristics in terms of being very layered textures. Although they're better with desserts than with savory foods.
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I must be lucky-- I can drink many Cuervo-based margaritas with no ill effects.
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I don't think I've ever seen anyone with this much liquor - I was guessing how much you had based off of your cocktail posts but this just kind of blew my mind, haha.
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Also, dirt? I've never had scotch (I'm such a noob, I know). Clearly I need to get on this. Mmmm.
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I am thinking about doing the thing you did with cookies and having people suggest flavors and doing drinks for specific people!
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A good way to start is to buy the little taster bottles and taste several of them straight, without anything in them, and then mixed with a little club soda or gingerale. This will give you an idea of what flavors are in the alcohol and whether it is something you might like mixed in a cocktail-- of course, in a cocktail, it will just be one ingredient, but it is sort of the same as tasting, say, a kind of vegetable and knowing if you would like it in a casserole.
I'm going to do a piece on the kinds of things you will want to have to mix as well. Depending on what liquors you like, you will want different fruits, herbs, sodas, juices, and sweeteners!
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If you look at the upper shelf in the liquor cabinet with all the bottles lying down, those are my wines!
I do a lot of winery visits but most of the wineries around here are mainly chardonnay wineries, and I am not a big white wine fan. I tend to gravitate to the fruity-but-not-sweet reds, generally somewhere between a zinfandel and a cabernet sauvignon, although I also tend to like beaujolais, montepulciano, sangiovese, and grenache. Sometimes syrah or shiraz athough I tend to find them to be a bit dirt-y or vegetable-y for my taste unless they really open up well. My very favorite recently have been old vine zins or primitivos, which have a lovely nutty flavor to them that is pretty rare in other wines.
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Merlot is a little too dry for my liking...and yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Most wines sort of have "staged" flavors to them...they'll have a flavor when they first hit your tongue, another when you have it in your mouth, and then an aftertaste. And they will often be very dissimilar!
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I'm more of a beer and cider drinker, and I have to say that the more different things you drink, the more taste notes you can tell!
My mom makes infused vodkas for Christmas presents!
You can help me graduate from 1) accidently making mixed drinks that are completely alcohol (a white russian that is 1 part Kalhua, one part vodka, one part St. Brenden's coffe liqour.. and b) getting drunk on arbor mist!
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1) There is nothing wrong with a drink that is completely alcohol-- it's just that if you do that, you want your drink to be smaller! Most of the drinks I post here are 3 oz of liquor per glass, which is a lot of alcohol. They're definitely sipping drinks. What I can do is teach you how to mix drinks that are more dependent on natural ingredients than on flavored liqueurs! Admittedly, though, I drank a lot of white russians when I was high school/college age. It took a while for me to get here!
b) The getting drunk on arbor mist is just embarrassing. What I can do is help you get drunk on homemade wine spritzers instead! At least that sounds more sophisticated. But I actually think it is really easy to get drunk on that kind of stuff...it doesn't taste like liquor and it is way too easy to put them back quickly. And as soon as you do that, you are imbibing drinks faster than the alcohol gets into your bloodstream, which means that your body can't warn you that you've had too much to drink. When you're drinking stuff like that, the best thing to do is to actually count and keep track and limit yourself to 1 or 1 1/2 per hour instead of trying to feel the effect, because you're not going to feel the effect quickly enough.
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Question: how do you organize your bottles? Which ones do you keep lying down, and is there a particular reason for that, or just that's where they fit?
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Organizing-wise, very quickly--
EVERYTHING but brandy and scotch (sipping liquors) go inside the bar. This is an easy classification mechanism for two reasons-- 1) the stuff that you are just going to pour into a glass without prep are all out on the counter ready to go, and 2) the sipping liquors all belong to my mother as I find them a million times less interesting.
The stuff on its side is all the wine. I try to keep the wine organized lightest to darkest but it is also the thing we go through fastest so this doesn't usually work.
A classic bar is organized lightest liquor to darkest, so it goes Vodka, Gin, Tequila, Rum, Whiskey. I do an alternate version of this based on my own preferences and frequency of use: Gin, Rum, Whiskey, which are my staples, all on the left side of the cabinet. The Vodka, Pisco, and Tequila are all next to them, as I use them less frequently. Cachaça gets stored with the rum. Then come the liqueurs and other things I use as mixers, like Campari and apple brandy, then come the liquorices, and then the dessert wines at the far end.
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I often feel completely at sea when it comes to alcohol because I grew up in a teetotaling family and my friends' parents were also all teetotalers. My brother tended bar for about five years, but he's never really shared anything about that with me (largely because we mostly only talk when the rest of the teetotaling family is also around). I only started drinking at about age 24, and I always feel so lost when I have to order drinks at a bar. One time my best friend and I got really tipsy at this club, and by the end of the evening the only drink I could think of to order was a Southern Comfort on the rocks, and only then because they were running freaking radio ads at that time (so success for them)! It always makes me feel so inept not to know much of anything about alcohol.
So all that is just to say that when I get to build my own bar someday, I will probably be referring back to these posts heavily (and also asking you for advice!).
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SoCo on the rocks by itself is pretty sickeningly sweet but it is not the worst thing to be drinking! I actually use Soco mostly in things like hot cider drinks or in eggnog. When you're learning about liquor, usually the thing I recommend doing is sticking to one type of liquor for the night so if it has an ill effect, you know what caused it. But then within that you can order a lot of different drinks-- for example, g&t, martini, gin gimlet, negroni, are all made with gin but all taste very different!
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a well-mixed drink isn't supposed to burn? seriously? is that after you've gotten used to it? i'm not a fan of drinking because i'm not too fond of food that hurts to ingest, and my -- admittedly very limited -- previous experience has all been of that nature, as opposed to the flavor. ethanol is actually supposed to be kind of sweet, from what i've read.
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If you're playing a bartender and want to learn more, I would recommend picking up a cheap bartending guide at the bookstore.
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