Bart
Essential Cocktail Ingredients
The ingredients that appear in the most cocktail recipes, ranked by how many drinks they actually unlock.
Recipes are not evenly distributed across ingredients. A handful of items appear in dozens of drinks; most appear in one. Knowing which is which is the whole game when you are deciding what to buy.
The workhorses
Across the 210 recipes in the library, these appear most often:
- Lemon. The single most-used ingredient. Fresh only.
- Lime. Second. Also fresh only.
- Simple syrup. In nearly a quarter of all recipes, and you make it from sugar and water.
- Gin. The most-used spirit by a wide margin.
- Angostura bitters. One small bottle, dozens of recipes, lasts for years.
- Sweet vermouth. The bridge between spirits and cocktails.
- Orange. Juice, wedge and twist — three different jobs.
Notice how many of those are not spirits. Three of the top seven cost less than a few pounds and are the difference between owning bottles and being able to make drinks.
The categories, and what each one does
| Category | Job in the drink | Buy first |
|---|---|---|
| Base spirit | Strong | Gin, then bourbon |
| Citrus | Sour | Lemons and limes |
| Syrup | Sweet | Simple syrup, made at home |
| Vermouth | Body and aromatics | Sweet, then dry |
| Amaro / bitter | Bitter | Campari |
| Liqueur | Flavour and sweetness | Triple sec |
| Bitters | Seasoning | Angostura |
| Soda | Length | Soda water, tonic |
Browse by ingredient
Every ingredient has its own page listing the recipes that use it, its substitutes, and how many new drinks it would unlock: browse all ingredients.
Rank these against your own bar
Bart shows how many drinks each ingredient would add to your shelf specifically, not to an average one.