5 Pieces of Equipment You Need to Make Great Cocktails in Your Home

Having a bar in your home is a luxury for some and an absolute necessity for others. If you regularly have guests over or you’re the type to host parties, then having a minibar in your home is more of a necessity. While there are several options to entertain guests, cocktails stand out as the best way to treat them.  

Cocktails also offer you the opportunity to show off your bartending skills to friends and family members. However, having a home bar is just the beginning. Making cocktails requires following specific recipes, and those recipes require some certain equipment. Here’s a list of stuff that will be required by most recipe books for you to produce excellent cocktails in the comfort of your home:

1. Juicers

Most cocktail recipes are based on fresh fruit juice, so being able to squeeze your own juice is going to be vital if you want to make excellent drinks.

When going for a juicer, try to buy the largest-sized one within your budget, so that you’ll be able to handle any size of citrus. Also, make sure the cut side of the fruit faces the hole of the juicer to ensure that you get most of the juice out.

2. Muddler

Oils and mint flavors from mint leaves, herbs, and citrus peels also form a part of the requirements for some popular cocktails like mojitos. While you can always use the back of a spoon to crush them, the quality of extract will be nowhere as near as when you use a muddler. Avoid using anything that’s varnished or has any other type of suspect coating. It may come off in your drinks and ruin them.

3. Jigger

Inaccurate measurements can ruin a drink for most people, and that’s what jiggers prevent. They help you maintain the right proportions when mixing a drink. This two-sided measuring tool has different sizes on each end, so you can buy half as many as you need.

4. Ice machine

One of the most significant determinants of how well a cocktail will taste is the quality of ice used in it. Regular ice produced by a refrigerator is cloudier and imperfect. Only the ice that’s clear and well-sized is perfect for a cocktail.

This is why you should get a dedicated ice machine. Nugget ice machines are probably the best machines for cocktail ice that you can get on the market. They produce ice that’s porous and softer than regular ice. They might be a bit pricey, but if you’re going to get an ice machine for making cocktails, you probably want to go for the best.  

5. Two-Piece Shaker

Also known as a Boston or a French Shaker, they are a necessity for producing absolute top-quality cocktails. Primarily designed for mixing the cocktail, they also make sure the drink is evenly diluted and aerated. Investing in one can be the difference between you, preparing an excellent cocktail, or a bland-tasting fruit mix.