Your Home Bar: Setting Up The Bar for Your Home Party

For some of us, when setting up a bar for a little get-together at the house, that only means pulling the liquor from the cupboard and making sure you have enough of the mixes and condiments needed to satisfy who’ll be coming over. Once you’ve established yourself with the essentials, it really doesn’t take much to replenish and maybe add a couple new liquors to your collection of bottles that have compiled through the years. But, there are also those who’ll maybe doing this bar set-up thing for the first time. There are some things to talk about, so you’re not overloading and overspending and, at the same time, make sure you’re covering all the basis when setting up a bar at your home.

One thing you will realize the first two minutes in the liquor store is how expensive liquor is. Now, when it comes to what I like to call the “rack essentials”, (vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, whiskey, amaretto), you have a good range of pricing. The low range, or “well” range liquors will range from $8 - $15 depending what part of the country you live in. On the other end of the spectrum, you can pay over $100 per bottle for a “super premium” liquor. So, in other words, just for the liquor alone, you will pay no less than $60 for the essentials. That’s before you consider the sodas and juices, wine and beer,the secondary liquors or liqueurs, plus the garnishes, stir sticks, beverage napkins, tools, and the different types of glassware. You are now probably asking yourself, “What the hell did I just get myself into?” No worries; there are some things you can do to keep the bar tab down for your maiden voyage.

If you are new to this due to just moving into a new place, or you’re new to being out on your own, etc, you can have a house warming party and ask people that instead of bringing a gift for the house, bring a bottle of liquor to build up a bar for the next party. Your friends will know that if you’re inviting them to this party, there’s a good chance that you’ll be inviting them to the next one. So, there’s a good chance that they will bring what they drink, which will ensure a moderately decent stock can be collected on these gatherings. Just be sure to stock the beer and the wine when having one of these parties, and have a couple bottles of your own out, so it’s not looking like your only building from their stock.

Another way to keep the cost down on this end of things is having a theme party, with a drink menu of maybe five or six cocktails. This way, you will know up front which liquors you will need and, depending on the size of the party, the amount of liquor that will be consumed. For example, you want to only use tequila and rum for your Mardi Gras party. Have a menu that will only use these two liquors and send this menu out with the invites, so people will know that if they want something else, they will have to bring it on their own.

When figuring out how much people will drink, always figure that people will have an average of two drinks the first hour, then a drink each hour after that. So, if your party is going to be three hours long, each person will consume four beverages. Even by calculating it this way, you will have more than enough for your party. To play it safe, be sure to calculate each drink having 2 oz. of liquor. Most cocktails have 1 1/2 oz. - 2 oz. of liquor in the recipe.

Next week, we will go a little more in depth with the bar essentials for your home bar. Please, feel free to email me at [email protected] or comment here with any questions.

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Shaun Daugherty

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Category: Your Home Bar Blog