BoozeCrate

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The Home Bar Backbone

When I first started dabbling in Cocktails, one of the most daunting tasks was taking the step to turn the random selection of liquor bottles I acquired during College and beyond into some semblance of an actual bar.

If you’re starting from ground zero and don’t know what you’re doing, the first thing is to make sure you have your bases covered. There are a handful of liquors, mixers and garnishes that make up the foundation of a good home bar. I have my personal preferences, but generally, they are as follows:

Liquors:
Whisky
Gin
Rum (White or Gold)
Vodka
Tequila
Sweet Vermouth
Dry Vermouth
Orange Liqueur

Mixers:
Coke (any cola)
Sprite (any lime soda)
Tonic
Ginger Beer/ale

Garnish/Citrus/Etc
Oranges
Lemons
Limes
Cherries
Green Olives
Simple Syrup
Angostura Bitters

With that stack of ingedients, a broad swath of basic mixed drinks and classic cocktails are at your disposal. With the exception of the Citrus, everything is shelf or fridge stable. (While you’re still dialing in your preferences, buy tiny cans for your mixers - no one likes a month old bottle of tonic).

From there, you can start to branch out and try a broader selection of your favorite liquors or get really into bitter aperitifs or whatever you want to do, but this gives you a solid foundation from which you can make a drink for most folks’ tastes!

Cheers!

This one has been in the hopper since I dialed it in a few years back, but I keep forgetting to bust it out on December 5th. Finally remembered this year. For those of you familiar with a Co***ne Drip, this is very much a riff on that flavor profile. Nonetheless, I think the different proportions coupled with the unique contribution of the Allspice Dram gives it a more approachable taste that will appeal to more folks than the full frontal assault of it’s forebearer. We give you…

Krampusnacht
2 pt Jäegermeister
1 pt Hot Damn
1 pt St. Elisabeth’s Allspice Dram
Splash of Rumplemintz

Stir in ice and strain over a big ole ice cube.

Prost!

For the past few weeks, elements of the Ohio Garrison (and a few ‘unaffiliated’ folks) have been chipping away at a rather surmountable project. I needed something on theme for tonight’s stitcher-doo-dah, so…

The Grand Moff:
6 parts High Banks Whiskey War
1 part Cynar
1 part Bartenders Ketchup
A dash of Angostura Bitters

NGL, I did not have great hopes for this, but by god, it turned out pretty tasty… Definitely still has a grapefruit back end, though.

The Malörtichoke Hold
3/4 oz Doctor Bird
3/4 oz Malört
3/4 oz Lime
1/2 oz St Germaine
1/2 oz Oregeat

Dusted off the ole girl for Con Nooga. Slowly returning.

Sail on, Betty…

Trying out Echo Spirits Distilling Co.’s new House Vodka this evening - a splash of Lillet with a lemon twist.

News item: Queen gives up her daily martini.

Please join us in picking up the torch…

If someone doesn’t know what they want, I’ll usually start by asking them to pick a preferred base liquor, then narrow it down to a particular cocktail from there. Not very often, but sometimes, someone will ask for tequila, and I (sadly) have to inform them that I don’t have any….

Damn... the cocktail spear fell in. I guess we’ll have to drink it out.

We have a couple sipping vodkas on the shelf at home (including Middle West Spirits’ wonderful Stonefruit Vodka), but it comes to BoozeCRATE we just have a couple workhorses. Don’t get me wrong - Russian Standard and Reyka are both plenty tasty on their own, but they are chosen for their versatility as a cocktail vodka, not for showcasing the breadth of flavor that is possible in the spirit.

Here we have a basic Deadpool. A healthy pour of Russian Standard, a can of V8 Spicy, a dollop of BoozeCRATE Bloody Mary paste and (thanks to Patch) a couple shakes of ‘The Opener’ from makeusfamousofficial.com, garnished with whatever you can dig out of the hotel mini fridge and stick on cocktail spear.

Unfortunately, Roku is not quite as impressive as Dry Fly’s incredible Gin offering. That said, it’s very much in the same ballpark and available in all 50 states. To this point, we’ve only been able to enjoy Dry Fly while visiting family in Washington, so having something that’s a close second that we can get down the street is rather exciting...