Stocking a Bar

Cafe Society
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The list on this page isn’t complete (i.e., I’ll note some other ingredients in specific recipes)

http://www.drinkboy.com has a bunch of recipes that you might want to peruse.
A few days ahead of time, have your folks get some frozen cherries, dump them in a jar, fill the jar with drinkable brandy, and stick it in the fridge till the day of the party. Use those as maraschino cherries.

Bitters: You need them. I’d recommend picking up some Fee Bros. Angostura bitters (just get the regular stuff, not the aged bitters) and some orange bitters (Regan’s is preferable, otherwise Fee Bros.) Angostura brand angostura bitters are also good.

Whiskey: I prefer rye to bourbon, though there are some drinks that call for the latter. I’d recommend the Rittenhouse bonded (100-proof) rye—it’s both quite cheap and quite good. If all you can find is Old Overholt, that’s acceptable. Don’t use Wild Turkey.

Gin: Plymouth is what you want. Second choice is Miller’s.

Vermouth: Get fresh bottles of both sweet and dry vermouth—even though it’s fortified, it’s still wine and it does go bad over time. Keep it in the fridge. If you feel like ordering stuff over the Internet, I highly recommend Carpano Antica sweet vermouth. Vya also makes sweet and dry vermouth that are pretty good. Otherwise, just use whatever you can find.

Brandy: I’m not particularly familiar with brandy. I just use the cheap stuff from Remy Martin.

Apple brandy: Yes, you should classify this separately from grape brandy. If you feel like ordering stuff over the Internet, I highly recommend Laird’s bonded (100-proof) applejack—I think they label it “Straight Apple Brandy”. The regular applejack will do in a pinch, but it’s not that great. Laird’s also has a couple of types of aged apple brandy which is pretty good, and then there’s “calvados”—French apple brandy. This can be good, but can be pricey. There’s also some other domestic apple brandy.

Triple sec: Just go with Cointreau. It’s expensive but worth it.

Rum: For white rum, Cruzan is my go-to brand. Mount Gay Special Reserve is also good, but has a more pronounced flavor with vegetal notes. For dark rum, everybody seems to have their own preferences. If you feel like spending a lot of money, I like Ron Zacapa or Zaya; Mount Gay Barbados Sugar Cane Rum is cheaper but also quite good. The other dark rums from Mount Gay are fine for mixing.

Sugar: Get sugar cubes. Regular white ones are okay, but you might want to go to some place like Whole Foods and get something like demerara sugar cubes (look for cubes that look like they’re made out of brown sugar). While you’re there, you might also want to pick up some light agave nectar (I use Madhava brand).

You’ll also want fresh lemons, limes, and oranges.

Always, always, always measure your ingredients. Oxo makes little 2-oz measuring cups that are great for this.

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If you want to get pedantic, this is modified from the official recipe for the Old Fashioned, and is actually a cross between a cocktail and a cobbler.
Get a low glass.
Drop in a sugar cube.
Add about an equal amount of water—you want juuust enough to be able to dissolve the sugar cube.
Get a spoon and moosh the sugar cube till it dissolves.
Cut a piece of orange about thrice the size of a cherry. Squeeze the juice into the glass, then discard the rest.
Add a few dashes of angostura and/or orange bitters—start with around 3 dashes. If you’re using the Fee Bros angostura bitters rather than Angostura brand, use a little less.
Add a few ice cubes and stir.
Add about a shot of your favored spirit (e.g., rye or brandy) and stir. (Don’t go overboard on the booze—the drink really should be kind of sweet. If you put in a lot of spirits, you should adjust the other ingredients. A shot is 1.5–2 oz)

Strain if you want, or serve it on the rocks; it doesn’t matter too much which way you go.

Add a big twist of orange and a cherry. Make sure you squeeze the orange peel to scatter the oil on top of the drink.

There are people who think that an Old Fashioned should have a generous amount of soda added to it. These people should be clubbed upside the head till they’re prostrate on the floor and have stopped twitching.

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1 oz fresh lemon juice
2 oz gin
Sugar to taste (I use agave nectar for this)

Shake thoroughly & strain into a champagne flute.

Fill with champagne.

Twist of lemon.
This drink is named after a WW I artillery piece that was known for its ability to hit with remarkable precision.
I use 8-oz flutes (which leads to a higher proportion of champagne) and err on the side of making the drink sweet, so it basically ends up as high-octane lemonade. This is great in the summer; I’m not sure how it would work in the winter.

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1 oz fresh lemon juice
2 oz dark rum (Ron Zacapa, Zaya, or Mount Gay Barbados Sugar Cane Rum if possible)
Sugar to taste (I use agave nectar for this)
A couple dashes of Fee Bros angostura bitters

Shake thoroughly & strain into a champagne flute.

Fill with Normandy hard cider. (Yes, that’s “hard cider from the Normandy area of France”—I recommend the stuff from Eric Bordelet)

Twist of lemon.

I use 8-oz flutes (which leads to a high proportion of cider)

This is a drink of my own concoction, and is really quite good. It tastes like Thanksgiving in a glass.

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1 part rye (you must use rye for this one—do not use bourbon)
1 part sweet vermouth
A couple dashes orange bitters

Stir & strain.

Twist of orange or a cherry. (Add it if you’re using cheap or mid-grade ingredients; omit if you’re using high-end ingredients.)
Yes, that really is a 1:1 proportion of spirits to vermouth. This is why I recommend you use the best vermouth you can get your hands on. If you really want to, you can reduce the amount of vermouth, but I’d recommend trying it with these proportions first. With a heavy-duty vermouth like Vya, I’d recommend the proportion of vermouth, but if you can find Carpano Antica, you really should go for the 1:1 proportions. (Also, try drinking the Antica straight–it’s very tasty by itself.)

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These proportions are modified from the official recipes—there’s supposed to be more gin and less vermouth, but this is smoother.

1 part gin
1 part fresh-squeezed orange juice (I really mean fresh-squeezed, not the “fresh-squeezed” OJ from a carton)
1 part vermouth, but use half sweet and half dry

Shake & strain.
This was invented by a bartender named Johnnie Solon, who named it after the zoo…more specifically, the name was inspired by the fact that his customers tended to see strange creatures both in the zoo and after overindulging.

FWIW, if you just mix gin and OJ, you get an “Orange Blossom”. If you like screwdrivers, try adding a dash of Cointreau–it’ll smooth out the transition between the vodka and OJ.

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1 part gin
1 part sweet vermouth
A couple dashes orange or angostura bitters

Stir & strain.

Twist of orange. (Optional but recommended.)
This is the original recipe for a martini. Tell the inevitable wankers that yes, a martini is supposed to have vermouth in it, so they should kindly STFU.

If you really want to, you can reduce the amount of vermouth, but I’d recommend trying it with these proportions first.

A “dry martini” still used 1:1 proportions, just with dry vermouth rather than sweet.
Regarding shaking vs. stirring: You really oughta stir martinis. But forget about that “bruising the gin” BS that people keep bringing up; the real reasons are as follows: (a) If you make them with a decent proportion of vermouth, shaking will give it a head of foam, which is gross. (b) Stirring is prettier.

A rule of thumb for shaking vs. stirring: If it has fruit juice, egg, or dairy in it, shake it; otherwise, stir it.
BTW, it’s also a mistake to keep the gin (or vodka, if you’re an utter barbarian) in the freezer. A martini should actually end up with a fair amount of water in it from the ice melting (it will smooth out the flavor similar to the way you occasionally need to add a little water to whiskey), so you want to start off with room-temperature spirits.

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4 parts apple brandy (if possible, use the Laird’s bonded applejack)
1 part yellow Chartreuse (do not use green Chartreuse)
1 part Benedictine (make sure you didn’t accidentally get a bottle of B&B)
About 2 dashes of angostura bitters

Stir & strain.
One is forced to conclude that widows are well-versed in the osculatory arts, as their namesake cocktail is both sweet and strong.
These proportions are modified a bit from the standard recipes; I’ve reduced the amount of Chartreuse and Benedictine, so the flavors are more balanced.

An interesting alternative to the Benedictine is St. Hubertus; it’s a sweet herbal liqueur from Hungary.

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This is basically a chick drink from the 1920s, but it’s surprisingly good. It takes some preparation ahead of time, though.

Get a bottle of pomegranate juice, the purer the better.
Dump it into a pot, add about an equal amount of sugar, and heat the mixture on low till the sugar dissolves and the mixture simmers a little bit.
Take it off the heat, let it cool a bit, dump it into a bottle, and add a coupla good shots of vodka or brandy.
Store it in the fridge.

Congratulations—you’ve just made grenadine.

If it’s pomegranate season you should start off with whole fruit and press the juice yourself.

If possible, get some Meyer lemons. (They’re a particular type of lemon that is sort of a cross between a lemon and an orange, and they’re faaaabulous.) If you can’t find them, regular lemons are okay too.

Now that you have the ingredients, here’s the recipe:

4 parts apple brandy (it must be apple brandy)
1 part lemon juice
1 part grenadine (it must be homemade—use less if you have Meyer lemons, since they’re sweeter)

Shake & strain.
There’s a similar drink called a “Jack Rose”—it’s a shot of apple brandy, the juice from half a lime, and a couple dashes of grenadine.

Once you have the grenadine, you could also try drizzling it over vanilla ice cream.

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This is one of those drinks where the proportions can go all over the place depending on personal taste. However, a decent basic recipe is as follows:

3 parts silver tequila (Use what brand you like, just make sure you get 100% blue agave. I like Chinaco.)
2 parts Cointreau
1 part fresh lime juice
2 or 3 dashes of angostura bitters (optional)

Shake & strain.

These proportions are pretty balanced, with an emphasis on the tequila. If you like it sweeter, add more Cointreau; if you like it more citrusy, add more lime juice.
Note the term “cocktail” in the name—adding the bitters makes it a cocktail. This is nonstandard; I just happen to like the taste of bitters in a margarita.

I recently learned (via the “Imbibe” book) that those margaritas you get in pint glasses and filled with that weird lemony soda stuff are actually quite historically valid. (Much to my chagrin, as I’d thought they were a recent invention of cheap bartenders who were trying to make you think you were getting a lot of drink for not much money.) Y’see, there are different “classes” of drink—for example, a “cocktail” by definition has a spirit, water, sugar, and bitters, while a “sling” has a spirit, water, and sugar, but no bitters. Another class of drink—and this is going back to the mid-1800s—is called a “daisy”, which has a spirit, citrus, orange cordial, and soda. Take a look at that list of ingredients, and it should come as no real surprise to find that the Spanish word for “daisy” is…well… “margarita”.
IMO, silver (unaged) tequila is best for margaritas. Anejo (aged tequila) is too “heavy”; reposado (slightly aged) is okay. “Gold” tequila is basically cheap-ass silver tequila with caramel coloring added, so there’s really no point to it.

There’s also not really any excuse for using “margarita mix”—the drink only has three ingredients and forgiving proportions to begin with, so it’s not like they’re a real challenge to make well. If you want to be lazy, grab some Squirt soda and mix your tequila with that.

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1 part brandy
1 part fresh lemon juice
1 part Cointreau

Shake & strain.
If you want to, you can increase the proportion of brandy or modify the proportion of Cointreau.

If you have a bottle of Metaxa, it works well in this recipe. Really good brandy would be wasted in this—you need something with a few rough edges.
You can also try making this with white rum.
This recipe is from roughly the WW I era.
Note the similarity to the margarita, except the margarita uses agave brandy instead of grape brandy, and lime instead of lemon.

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Diamondback

2 parts rye (yes, you must use rye)
1 part yellow Chartreuse (don’t use green Chartreuse)
1 part apple brandy

Shake & strain.

Amber Dream

1.5 oz gin
0.75 oz sweet vermouth (if you’re using Vya vermouth, use a little less)
0.25 oz yellow Chartreuse (don’t use green Chartreuse)
1 dash orange bitters

Stir & strain.

Champagne Cocktail

Get a champagne flute, drop in a sugar cube.
Add bitters to taste (for this, I prefer Angostura brand). Use about 6 dashes.
Add a dash of Cointreau.

Fill with champagne.

Twist of lemon.
You could also use hard cider instead of champagne—if you do, omit the Cointreau. This is called a “Jersey Cocktail”.

Cosmopolitan

This is the recipe from the guy who invented it (Toby Cecchini). Made correctly, it’s not a chick drink.

5 parts lemon vodka
5 parts triple sec or Cointreau (he recommends Stock brand triple sec)
4 parts fresh lime juice
1 or 2 dashes cranberry juice (it’s really just for color, not flavor)

Shake very thoroughly & strain.

Twist of lemon.

Moscow Mule

Only make this if you have access to ginger ale that’s really fuckin’ strong. I like Blenheim’s red-cap or Fentiman’s.

Get a tall glass (about 12 oz capacity).
Dump in a handful of ice cubes.
Squeeze a whole lime into the glass; also drop the peels into the glass.
Pour in enough vodka (don’t bother measuring for this one).
Fill with ginger ale.

Stir gently.
You can also make this with dark rum instead of vodka—IIRC, that version is called a “Dark & Stormy”.
Another alternative is to use rye instead of vodka—use a shot of rye and the juice of half a lemon instead of a whole lime, and don’t drop the peel in the glass. (You might want to use a slightly smaller glass for this one.) This is called a “Cablegram”. Incidentally, this is further improved if you add a dash of Torani Amer.

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Bar? Did somebody say bar?
:smiley:

Start with the basics. Flesh out from there.

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They sell those pre-mixed in bottles here, made with Bundaberg Rum. They’re very popular.