Bart
How to Stock a Home Bar
What to buy, in what order, at three budgets — and the cheap items that block more drinks than any missing spirit.
Stocking a bar goes wrong in one of two ways: you buy five spirits and no modifiers, so nothing combines; or you buy a bottle for one recipe and it sits there for three years.
Three tiers
Tier 1 — five bottles
Gin, bourbon, light rum, sweet vermouth, Campari. Plus lemons, limes, sugar and Angostura. This makes the Negroni, Manhattan, Boulevardier, Daiquiri, Martinez, Americano, Whiskey Sour and Gimlet, among others.
Tier 2 — ten bottles
Add dry vermouth, tequila, triple sec, vodka and a dark rum. Dry vermouth is the highest-value addition: it opens the Martini, the Dry Manhattan, the Vesper and a long tail of stirred drinks.
Tier 3 — the specialists
Maraschino liqueur, Chartreuse, Aperol, crème de violette, orgeat, absinthe. Each unlocks a small number of very good drinks. Buy these one at a time, and only when a specific recipe keeps coming up.
The things that are not bottles
These are cheap and they block more recipes than any spirit:
- Fresh lemons and limes, always.
- Simple syrup, made at home in two minutes.
- Angostura bitters, and orange bitters second.
- Soda water and tonic, in small bottles so they stay fizzy.
- Good ice, in quantity.
- Eggs, if you want a Whiskey Sour with a proper head.
Storage
- Vermouth and sherry are wine. Refrigerate after opening and finish within a month. An oxidised vermouth is the most common cause of a bad Manhattan.
- Spirits are stable. Upright, out of sunlight, no fridge.
- Liqueurs with cream or egg have a real expiry date.
- Citrus juice dies in hours. Squeeze to order.
Buy on evidence, not on lists
The right next bottle depends on what you already have. We ran the numbers against every recipe in the library: which bottle unlocks the most cocktails.
Build the list against your shelf
Bart tracks what you own, what you are one bottle short of, and what to buy next.