How to stock your bar for the holidays

Prepare yourself for guests, surprise visitors, and a late night nip or two

My friends…they’re coming.

Friends come by for a dinner. They’ve come with a bottle of wine (nice!) but you know they’ll be there late into the night, and that bottle won’t last long.

Neighbors stop by, unannounced, with cookies: do they think they can come in to warm themselves up and have a little splash of something?

Carolers are at your doorstep, singing, wanting something warm to drink.

It’s Thanksgiving night or Christmas eve or the 6th night of Hanukkah and you’re full from eating too much but still want a little drink to finish off the night.

I’m telling you—these things are going to happen. So you need to be prepared!

Which is why today I want to give you some ideas on how to stock your bar for the holidays. I spoke with a few members of my beverage team—Miguel Lancha and Daniel Grajewski, who you’ve met before, and Josh Murski, who you haven’t (someday I’ll plan to share Josh’s incredible technique for creating crystal-clear cocktail ice…I think we’ll call it the Murski Method!)

They all had great advice for holiday entertaining. These guys are thinking about this stuff in a different dimension (for example, Miguel doesn’t keep fresh mint on his home bar because he doesn’t want to be stuck making mojitos all night long instead of enjoying the party…!). But they can also help the rest of us figure out what we should be doing to up our games.

Just so you get to know the team, I asked them what they like to serve for parties.

Josh knows just what to make: “I serve the Salt Air Margarita on the farm in Texas, I love doing that for large groups.”

Miguel will always do a milk punch (like our Japanese Whisky Milk Punch), all the work is beforehand while listening to a podcast or whatever, and by the time guests come, it’s just poured from a bottle. “It’s delicious, it’s impressive, and it has a cool history!”

Daniel has a balanced approached: "I like to keep a simple variety of options available. A sour cocktail like a Daiquiri, something boozy like a Negroni, and something fun like a Whiskey Milk Punch. You never know what your guest will want, so I want to always be ready!"

And now…a few tips to raise your bar!

Tools of the Trade

Here are a few tools you can add to your bar cart or kitchen cabinet if you want to get a little more serious about making drinks. None of them are necessary of course but you’ll see how your mixing can get so much better with a little investment.

Shaker – this is a given if you want to make shaken cocktails…margaritas, daiquiris, sours, sometimes even a martini (well, if you’re James Bond!).

Strainers — the classic strainer that fits into your shaker glass is called a Hawthorne strainer. It will get out the biggest chunks of ice from your drink, but doesn’t remove the finer pieces. For that, you’ll want to pour your cocktail through a fine mesh strainer. You can see a difference between just the Hawthorne strainer and a fine strainer…you’ll find little pieces of ice in the strainer, which would otherwise be in your beautiful cocktail! This is also important for drinks like sours that use an egg white…you’ll want to get out any little pieces that don’t emulsify into that beautiful foam on a pisco sour or rum sour.

Mixing glass — our team likes the Yarai mixing glass. This is great for stirred cocktails—martinis (if you’re not James Bond), Manhattans, negronis, old fashioneds. But a big Mason jar will do…or even just stir your cocktail in your glass with a big ice cube (even better if it’s crystal clear thanks to the Murski Method!)

Cocktail picks — Josh thinks a metal pick always looks classier than wooden ones for putting an olive in a martini or pickles in a bloody mary.

Bottles to Have on Hand

Miguel tells me that there are a few bottles he likes to always have on hand for when friends come to visit. He assured me has many, many bottles in his own collection, but for the most part, it can be as simple as 4 or 5 bottles: rum, agave, cognac, gin, and whiskey, plus maybe a vermouth and an aromatic liqueur.

Rum – Miguel generally likes to have two bottles of rum on hand, one for sipping and one for mixing. He likes having a white rum as well as something aged. Well, he actually says he likes to have two aged rums, something drier and something richer, but he’s a bit more intense about this than the rest of us!

Agave – Either tequila or mezcal. You can make margaritas or just sip on it, if you’re into that. For tequila, he likes having a blanco or a reposado—those styles are more flexible than the older añejo.

Cognac — Always a nice thing to sip on at the end of the night, plus you can mix up Sidecars or Sazeracs. If you’re just getting something to mix, look for VSOP (referring to the age of the cognac) and save the expensive XO for sipping.

Gin — If you’ve been with us for a while, you might remember when I told you all about the Spanish obsession with gintonic. Almost every Spaniard I know loves the combination, so we all keep a bottle of gin around.

Whiskey — As a Spaniard, Miguel isn’t as obsessed with whiskey as he thinks Americans generally are. But as he’s lived in the US longer, he’s getting more and more into whiskeys. He likes to keep a bottle of rye around for making old fashioneds or Manhattans for visiting friends.

Extras

A few additional bottles and products will give you even more flexibility when mixing drinks.

Vermouth — Once again, it might be a Spaniard thing, but we love sweet vermouth! If you can find a Spanish brand like Lustau or El Bandarra, you can have it simple with ice (and an olive…? Let me tell you sometime more about Spanish vermouth hour!), or you can mix it in for negronis or Manhattans. Of course, if you like martinis, you’ll need dry vermouth!

A nice mixing liqueur— I’ll let Miguel take this one. “When I tell my mom what she needs for the bar, I tell her that she needs a nice aromatic liqueur to enhance other drinks. For me, it’s absinthe. For her, it’s St. Germain, a nice, sweet, elderflower liqueur. You can use them to enhance other cocktails, or to get creative.”

Bitters—Bitters are strong, concentrated liquids flavored with herbs, spices, and more. The most common is probably Angostura, made in Trinidad. A few dashes of bitters will add easy complexity to any cocktail…Miguel adds it to a Dark and Stormy (ginger beer and rum) or a Cuba Libre (cola and rum) for a little extra something.

Simple Syrup—Make your own! One part sugar, one part water. Heated or not, the type of sugar doesn’t matter, and it lasts for a while…of course you can buy it, but sugar is cheap and water is free, so it makes a lot of sense to make your own.

Fresh citrus juice—if there’s one thing that NEEDS to be fresh, it’s citrus. Those pre-made juices will make any cocktail taste worse, and don’t even think about using purchased sour mix.

Peels—Miguel loves to garnish drinks simply, with citrus peels. He likes to have orange, lime, and lemon peels around, depending on what he’s making.

Don’t forget NAs

Whether they’re for mixing or for drinking on their own, it’s always important to have non-alcoholic drinks on hand…”sodas that are cool,” says Miguel. He recommends having a good tonic water—he likes Fever Tree or London Essence—as well as a high-quality ginger beer.

Miguel likes to mix drinks for his kids so they can feel like they’re part of the festivities. He likes to mix orange juice, passionfruit puree, honey or maple, and a topping of grapefruit soda, and garnish with citrus peels. He’ll also muddle the family’s breakfast berries at the bottom of the glass for a little extra fun and color.

If All Else Fails

Daniel had the simplest advice for how to serve drinks at a party: ready-to-drink cocktails. It’s a newer product on the market, and there are some very good options—just keep your eyes out for brands you generally respect, and give their products a try. For whiskey cocktails, Daniel likes the bottles from High West—they make a bottled Manhattan and an Old Fashioned, with all the work already done for you. He also mentioned Drifter Craft Cocktails, which come in a can and feature recipes from real bartenders: “It’s like finding the bartender you like in your own town and drinking their cocktails wherever they go. It’s nice to put a name to a drink,” said Daniel.

So friends…what do you think? Will you be ready for anything that comes at you this holiday season—with a drink in hand?