Video:Cocktail Set Essentials

Transcript:Cocktail Set Essentials

Hi my name is Ben Scorah, I'm here at the Windsor NYC. I'm the head mixologist here. Today we're gonna talk about the tools you need at home to make delicious cocktails at your home bar.

Shakers are Essentials in a Cocktail Set

So first of all, and most importantly, we have our Boston shaker. So we have the two shaker tins, so we can shake our cocktails. We have a large nice mixing glass to stir our martinis and Manhattans and old fashioneds.

Measure Cocktail Drinks with Jiggers

We have a couple of different size jiggers, it's really important to have jiggers so we can measure what's going into the cocktails. So it's nice to have two different sized ones. A lot of cocktails call for different ingredients, so a large one for one and two ounces and a small one for half an ounce and a quarter of an ounce.

Serve Fresh Cocktails Using Strainers and Juicers

We have our bar spoon so we can stir our martinis and Manhattans. We have our Hawthorne strainer to strain from the shaker tin, and we have a julip strainer to strain from our mixing glasses. Every one needs a wine key, to open bottles of wine and beer.

We have a double strainer, that would get all the little bits of fruit and ice out of the drink when we strain into our martini glasses. We have a fresh juice squeezer. This is really important when your making sour drinks or margaritas. So much better to use fresh juice, it's really fresh, really simple and makes the drink so much better. We have a little perry knife to cut our fruit with. We have a zester, so if you want a lemon twist, you can just zest a lemon off.

We have some tongs, so you can pick up your ice. It's really nasty at home when you pick up your ice with your hands and all your guests see, so we have some nice tongs for that. This is called a swizzle stick, so when were making all those cool Caribbean drinks we can swizzle away. Finally, and more importantly, we have a muddler, so we can muddle our mojitos and caparinias; Anything that you've got fresh fruit you need to bash around the muddle is perfect.

Build Your Cocktail Set

So all of these bar tools you can pick up at your local restaurant supply store or you can find them online, barsupplies.com or barproducts.com they all sell this really cool bar stuff. You can pick up one piece at a time or get it as a collective group. If I had to pick 3 bar tools for my home bar: my boston shaker, my fresh juice squeezer and my jiggers.

I'm Ben Scorah, thanks for coming down to the Windsor today and checking out our bar tools segment.