Guide
What all belongs in a house bar - utensils and glasses
by Oliver Fischer
I am now a certified bartender - not
31.12.2021
Translation: machine translated
Rarely has a new hobby grabbed me like my home bar and cocktail mixing. That's why I even took a course. And soon I'll probably have to move.
I am far from being a good bartender. But my home bar has become quite impressive and I have a passion for mixing. And because I love learning, I signed up for a bar and cocktail course without further ado.
When I enter the Felix Bar in Zurich on a Monday morning in the fall, the first thing I notice is the right wall: the wall behind the bar, the spirits wall. Rectangular shelves of different sizes are home to the bottles from which bar owner Felix Haag (one of the two course instructors) and his team mix cocktails every evening. Later, he explains how the wall is organized and why: for example, that the higher up the shelf, the more exclusive and expensive the bottles are.
In the morning, the focus was first on specialist knowledge: Where does bar culture come from in the first place? How has it developed since its beginnings in the USA in the 19th century up to the present day? Interesting, but I'm here primarily for the mixing.
The other course topics in the morning were merchandise knowledge and bar equipment. You can read some of what I learned there here:
Shaking and Stirring
In the afternoon, we finally got down to the equipment. Bottles were pulled out, jiggers filled and emptied, shakers shaken and drinks strained into ice cold glasses.
Two of the drinks we tried our hand at:
I tried one shaken drink and one stirred drink myself. First, I ventured into a Negroni. Seems simple enough: mix three ingredients thoroughly with ice in a mixing glass and pour it into the glass. But it turns out that this one-handed stirring with a long bar spoon is not as easy as it looks when the professionals do it. I, for one, am struggling to get the bright red liquid and the ice cubes going. I still need a lot of practice.
Drink number two was a Mai Tai. A lot more ingredients, five to be exact, ice and then shake it up good in the Tin-in-Tin shaker. I honestly had a lot more respect for that than I did for stirring. At home, I used until then exclusively Cobbler shaker, which close very full. So a bit I feared that I would spill the half-shaken drink including ice with momentum through the bar. But it turns out that the Tin-in-Tin shaker closes just as tightly as the Cobbler and the shaking feels quite natural. It's also much easier to open. That's exactly what I need at home.
That's what I learned in the course:
- That I should always build my drinks in ascending order of the price of the ingredients (If something goes wrong, it will be less expensive).
- That I only want to work with a Tin-in-Tin shaker in the future
- That I shake quite well, but still need a lot of practice in using the bar spoon for stirred drinks
- Origin and production of the most important spirits (vodka, gin, whisky, rum, tequila)
- Which glasses are absolutely necessary for a bar - and which are still available
- What equipment and ingredients I still need for my home bar
- Where the concept of a bar comes from
Two months later: This is how my house bar has changed
I've bought the Tin-in-Tin shaker, tested it and wouldn't give it away again. A mixing glass, as recommended to me, I also already use regularly. I have ordered a citrus press and I am still thinking about a bar mat. So really compelling methinks not, on the other hand, I am already so well equipped that it would round off the picture when mixing already nice.
In the article about the most important ingredients that belong in a home bar, I described what is in my cupboard. Its contents have become much larger, also because the wall at Felix has impressed me quite a bit. Our culinary editor Simon Balissat edited all the articles in this series and scolded me an AMATEUR when he read that I didn't own any bitters and thought they were unnecessary to begin with. Well, I can reassure him, there has long been a bottle of Angostura Bitters in the cupboard - and I love them. As for the spirits, a bottle of Rye and a Canadian Whisky have been added to the Scotch and Bourbon, and the range of rums has grown to include a Rhum Agricole. Among the liqueurs, a Maraschino (cherry liqueur) is the only new acquisition.
Further purchases are only a question of time. The only thing is that I would soon need a bigger cabinet to store it all - or to display it as attractively as in a bar. But for that I need a bigger apartment. Crap - I've probably gotten myself into something...
Oliver Fischer
Teamleader Editorial
Oliver.Fischer@digitecgalaxus.chGlobetrotter, hiker, wok world champion (not in the ice channel), word acrobat and photo enthusiast.
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