An online speakeasy of potent potables and other pabulam.

It is no secret that I love searching through antique stores for bar tools, cocktail related memorabilia or simply quirky items I can use in my home bar. This past Thanksgiving, while visiting my Mother in southwest Virginia, we traveled to Bristol, Tennessee where Main Street is lined with antique stores.

What you see in the picture above is the find of the trip. It is a silver plated beverage warmer.

The base holds a glass candle holder which fits a tea candle. The carafe is suspended over the flame by small metal nibs which set into the arms of the base. The really neat aspect to this piece is that it tilts forward to fill your glass without the need to remove the carafe from the base.

This thing is also a looker!

I really can’t wait to use this to serve warm cider, mulled wine, glogg or some other warm tipple this winter!

What are your best antique finds? Share them in the comments!

Cheers!

Over the course of the years, I’ve had lots of friends enjoy hanging out and drinking cocktails in my home. When you’ve been dabbling in cocktails as long as I have you tend to collect a lot of tools. I believe the form and function of using the proper tools is important. First, to make a balanced cocktail, you need to carefully measure ingredients and carefully pour the drink into the glass. Second, you want your guests to feel like they are getting something special in that glass and it was prepared using the best tools.

The good news is that you can have a very well stocked tool kit for home cocktails for very little cash. Since we’ve just passed Black Friday and retailers were trying their best to separate you from your wallet, I decided to chronicle my favorite basic bar tools in the next several posts. While some of these won’t be the cheapest option, in my opinion they are the best for the money and won’t require a loan or selling your first born child to the credit card company to own. These tools are everything you need to make just about any cocktail.

First, you have to have mixing tins/shakers. Many times you see what’s called a Boston Shaker which usually consist of a pint glass and a larger tin which fits snugly over the pint glass. You can stir drinks in the pint glass and use both pieces to shake. The downside to this set-up is two fold. First, glass is not a good conductor of heat. It takes a lot more thermal energy to cool down the glass than it does other materials. Second, pint glasses have a tendency to break. I prefer all metal Boston Shakers. Using all metal solves both problems with glass. Metal is a great conductor of thermal energy meaning your cocktail will get cold faster. Plus, metal doesn’t shatter. These are my metal shakers.

Different size shaker tins.

I like having various sizes. From left to right, each tin works with the next size down. The largest set is good for making 3 or 4 cocktails at a time while the smallest set is perfect for serving one cocktail to a guest. I have purchased tins from BarProducts.com and found them cheap and very dependable.

The second basic tool you need is a jigger. You can find these at almost any kitchen store, restaurant supply depot, or in your grandmothers cabinet gathering dust. For my money, the best jigger on the market is the Oxo Steel Double Jigger.

As you can see, this jigger has a non-slip grip in the middle which is great when your hands are wet or sticky. The bigger bowl holds 1.5 ounces and the smaller bowl holds 1 ounce. But what really sets this jigger apart is the gradients inside each bowl.

For about the same price as the Oxo jigger you can get stainless steal jiggers with each bowl a single volume. Similar to these:

These are good jiggers and meet the form and function of your tools. However, I’m lazy and don’t want to wash more than I have to and only using one tool instead of multiple fits the bill for me.

The third tool you need is a good muddler. For my favorite muddler, see this post on the PUG! muddler.

The last tool I’ll cover in this post is the all important cocktail spoon.  Cocktail spoons are a bit different than a normal spoon in that the are long and contain a shallow bowl at the end.  Some bar spoons have a fork or a muddler on the other end.  These are the two spoons I use most often.

The brand of spoon on the left has been lost to memory, the spoon on the right is a ProStirrer by Uber Bar Tools.  Each of these spoons is weighty and feels good in the hand.  The ProStirrer has a muddler on the end, although I find it works much better to crack ice cubes than muddle. One thing to notice about both of these spoons is the lack of a red plastic cap on the end. My experience has been the cheaper spoons, usually the ones with the red tip, are flimsy tools not worth wasting your money on.

There you have it. My favorite shaker tins, jiggers, muddler & spoons. Next time, I’ll cover strainers, ice cube trays, peelers, and one special tool I think every home bartender should utilize.

Do you have any favorite bar tools? Leave a comment and let us know what and why.

Cheers!

No, not a new dance craze or an alternative lifestyle establishment. The Twist & Sparkle is a home carbonation contraption that allows you to carbonate four cups of water or three cups of any other kind of beverage.

The GF gave me a twist & sparkle for my birthday. (Oh, I can’t believe I just typed that! Perverts!) Now I have an iSi sofa siphon that I use to make soda water and I really enjoy it. The T&S allows me to carbonate other delicious drinks. I think you know where I’m going with this.

Last weekend while hanging out at a friend’s house who has a T&S, we carbonated several batches of pisco punch. Other than the carbonation, the flavor of the punch was slightly altered. Basically, the flavor was a bit muted. We added a little extra lime juice to punch (get it?) up the tartness and the second batch came out great.

Another great benefit is making homemade sodas. And the first think I had to make was ginger beer! I used Morgenblogger’s recipe. It’s a very simple recipe and tasty to boot.

As I investigate more fun uses I’ll report back.

Cheers!

The folks at Air & Water were kind enough to offer a number of bloggers one of their icemakers (I got the AI-100SS it appears).  I figured “What the heck, I’ll try that!”  In my old house, I was always short on ice, and though I have a rather prolific icemaker now in my fridge I was curious how it’d work for (perhaps) parties or tailgating.

The first thing that surprised me was its size.  I could tell you in inches, or centimeters, or whatever, but y’all are reading this blog due to booze, so here it is in booze bottles.

By the way, I hate the wax seal on Ransom Old Tom Gin

It is as wide as a bottle of Ransom Old Tom Gin.

It is as tall as a liter bottle of Pimm’s #1.

It is as deep as a bottle of Voyant chai creme liqueur.

It’s a bit heavy, but I didn’t have anything to compare that too.  Sorry!  (Not really actually sorry.)  A lot of the stainless steel was covered in blue plastic wrap that was a pain in the butt to take off.  Maybe I was just missing something.  That happens a lot.

Now I want a Pimm's Cup

“Geez SeanMike, that’s great and all,” you say, “but how does it work?”

Well, I’ll tell you.  Also, I imagine you having a nasally nerd voice.  Ha ha!

Basically, on the inside there are rows of little metal prongs.  You fill up the water to a certain level, select the thickness of ice that you’d like, and 6 or so minutes later (depending on the thickness you selected) you’d have your first batch.

I wouldn’t suggest really using the first batch, however.  Even at maximum thickness it tended to be melt quickly, but that might be because the inside of the icemaker isn’t very cold at first.  It takes it quite a while to cool off enough to keep ice solid, and during that time if you’re not careful the ice will melt and refreeze into a larger mass.

I need more room in my fridge so I can open this

The ice that is formed looks like a thimble.  That surprised the heck out of me when I first saw it but as I thought about it I realized it’s how the ice forms.  Even at the thickest they are not much bigger than the end of my thumb.  Given that the current movement in icing straight liquor such as whiskeys is using one large block of ice (I have a very nice ice cube tray I now use for that courtesy of Cocktail Kingdom, because Greg Boehm graciously gave it to me) I wouldn’t suggest using it for that.

EXCEPT…well, sometimes you just want to add a bit of water to your whiskey.  Like, sometimes for scotch, I guess.  I never know when it’s proper or not.  In that case, using one or two of these would be okay.  Just know it’s going to melt in no time flat.

Okay, okay, how about making cocktails?

Stirring – I got a lot more dilution in my cocktail stirring, and it seemed to get cold pretty quickly.  It’s not a bad thing, but you’ve got to mind your timing – it is NOT the same as using harder ice.  It’s more like using the bagged ice you get in a grocery store.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  I don’t stir my drinks that often (I don’t care what you think, shuddup) but it was feasible to use it for that.

Shaking - I cannot recommend that unless you’re going for a blender-less version of a slushy.  The ice broke down and disintegrated in no time.

A friend of mine was much more excited about the icemaker than I was.  She lives in the same building as me, just ten stories higher, and can’t stand the ice her fridge makes.  This lets her make ice with filtered water, which she likes a lot.  I’d thought about using it to try to make tonic ice or something but I was worried about messing it up.

I found the icemaker useful for non-alcoholic drinks as well.  Never did get a chance to take it tailgating but I think my next opportunity to tailgate will be in December in Pittsburgh so I probably won’t need a lot of ice there…

If you’ve used it, feel free to give your thoughts on it!