The 3 Bartending Tools In My Home Bar – And How I Build Cocktails Using Them
No fancy equipment, no fuss ingredients. After numerous goof ups at my home bar, where I bit off more than I could chew, the golden rule became clear to me: start simple.
As an amateur mixologist, at first, I believed all spangly elements, from a fancy bar cart to a citrus zester to those tiny tongs for picking up ice cubes, were needed for fine blending. But unfamiliar with the arrangement of the elongated bar table, all these tools scattered around on the surface ended up creating a mess, making it difficult for me to locate or reach for what was most essential for blending simple highballs and light sours.
That’s when I embraced the basic ‘less is more’ paradigm. I wiped my bar table clean of every bar tool that seemed excessive for my amateur self, and kept only the apparatus that felt most essential. The tiny tongs, the fancy zester, the kitschy muddler were all relegated to a wooden cabinet behind the bar. What remained on the rectangular mixology space were just three tools – a trusted cocktail shaker, a jigger and a strainer. For weeks afterwards, I used these three instruments to blend drinks, and the result? Crisp, flavourful blends concocted cleanly with an unexpected efficiency.
The Cocktail Shaker
Apart from being one of the most essential tools required to build numerous cocktails, one of the reasons this shaker remained on the bar table was that it was a gift from a much loved family member who had discovered my growing interest in mixology.
My cocktail shaker is a simple stainless-steel container with a sturdy lid. It has an in-built strainer akin to that of a cobbler shaker. It is simple to use, easy to clean, and is now an inseparable element of my home bar.
Along with lending me the ability to blend old fashioneds, mojitos and negronis, the cocktail shaker also brings a bit of theatricality into my beginner-friendly mixology. As soon as I start shaking cocktail ingredients, the ‘thunk thunk’ of the ice as it clashes against the container makes for a lyrical sound, announcing that something intriguing is happening inside.
Now, my use of the cocktail shaker has expanded to giving a quick shake to herbs and fruits that become flavourful infusions in bright, citrusy cocktails. It is also my go-to tool for blending milkshake-like drinks complete with coffee liqueurs and cream that acquire an aerated, foamy, frothy quality when they are shaken vigorously with ice.
Also Read: Tools Of The Trade: How Bartending Equipment Shapes Cocktail Flavour And Texture
The Responsible Jigger
When I first started blending cocktails, the most difficult element for me was getting the flavour-balance right, as is the case with most amateurs. Finding it difficult to manage proportions, I finally invested in a professional jigger, which is now my most reliable bar tool.
The jigger is responsible for bringing a quiet precision into cocktails. What once seemed like flat drinks transformed into shiny spritzers and fresh daiquiris when their ingredient proportions were balanced using this measuring tool.
And the cherry on the cake is that a jigger minimises waste in rather quantifiable measures, especially while experimenting with different ingredient combinations. It allows more flexibility to taste as I go along and to keep adding small, measurable amounts of ingredients without excess.
The Stylish Strainer
I like my cocktails to have a clean finish. Drinks with a cloudy appearance or too many herbal and fruity elements floating around somehow feel a tad clumsy. These aesthetic sensibilities necessitated that I keep on hand a strainer that would allow me to serve drinks with an elegant look.
While my cocktail shaker already has an in-built strainer, I use a separate one (which I borrowed from my kitchen, actually) to strain whisky sours, gimlets, daiquiris and martini cocktails before serving. The clean pour gives my cocktails a silky finish and a clear taste undisturbed by bittered herbs or overly juiced citruses.
The best part about having just these three cocktails at my bar is their vast ability to build versatile cocktails. Not only is my bar entirely decluttered now, but with just these basic tools on hand, I am that much more confident about building highballs, spritzers, sours and smashes – flatteringly in their flavour complexity yet brilliantly straightforward in their making.
Drink Responsibly. This communication is for audiences above the age of 25.
