Make your own home the best bar in town

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 23

Make your own home the best bar in town

A bar is perhaps more a state of mind than a piece of furniture. It can be as modest as a kitchen cupboard or elaborate enough to build a whole room around. Even its contents can differ from one home to the next. To many people a couple of bottles of the favourite spirits, the mixes to go with them, a few bottles of beer and possibly some wine are enough to meet the social requirements. As drinking at home becomes a more popular pastime, however, more people are experimenting with unusual and exotic drinks. To mix cocktails and to be sure that you have something on hand to please every taste it is necessary to be a little more adventurous in the stocking of your bar. Start with this common spirits — whisky, brandy gin, vodka, rum, bourbon — and build up from there as the fancy takes you. Most of the popular cocktails use one of these spirits as a base and most people will drink one of them with a mix.

Remember to keep your stocks of mixes or soft

drinks up with the alcoholic drinks. There is nothing worse to a confirmed gin-and-tonic drinker than having to drink gin and lemonade because the tonic ran out. Remember, too, that not everyone drinks alcohol, and have a reasonable supply of interesting fruit drinks on hand. Your stock of mixes should include lemonade, ginger ale, cola, tonic water, a fruit squash and soda or mineral water. Orange juice and tomato juice are often appreciated, either on their own or in a cocktail. Lime juice, pure lemon juice and Angostura bitters will come in handy on many occasions and your bar should always have a good supply of ,ice and iced water. Cocktail mixing is both interesting and good fun. Your guests will be delighted to try new cocktail recipes in much the same way as they enjoy eating a new food. As an earlyevening drink before dinner or as a prelude to an evening out, a cocktail hour conjures up visions of all that is most elegant and sophisticated in the world of entertainment. A cocktail is in fact a drink consisting of two or more ingredients stirred or shaken to give a smooth blend. The most famous of all is the martini, but there are literally thousands of possibilities for cocktail mixes. The most widely-known cocktails can be made

with a fairly limited stock of liqueurs. Advokaat, cherry brandy, creme de cacao, creme de menthe, Cointreau, Drambuie and Galliano will suffice, but there are various types of most liqueurs and you should choose those you like the best. Althought liqueurs are expensive to buy, only small quantities are used Encourage friends and family to give bottles as presents — this will increase your knowledge of what is available as well as allowing a wider range of drinks to be mixed. In addition to the spirit and spirit-based drinks, your bar should include aperitif wines and afterdinner drinks. Sherry is probably the best-known aperitif but the European favourites are gaining in popularity here. Dubonnet, Campari and the vermouths (Martini, Cinzano, etc.) are light, pleasant pre-dinner drinks designed to clear the palate and start the digestive juices forming. Sherry acts in the same way, but it is not recommended that a sweet sherry be drunk directly before a meal — the sweetness clogs the taste buds rather than cleaning them. The after-dinner wines tend to be sweeter and heavier, soothing the system and encouraging a drowsy glow. Of these the best-known is port, but Madeira and Marsala are also drunk. The subject of ports and Cognacs is really a spe-

cialist one, and should be left to the connoissuer. By H and large, the buyer gets S what he pays for — age R above all. § With your bar well- M stocked and a dash of g imagination,' sharing a social drink will become a ■ pleasure to look forward || to rather than a duty to gj be shirked. ’ ®