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Toasting with bourbon at a Bourbon Women event. (Photo by Chris Joyce KY)
1 | BOURBON BAR BASICS
Mix at Home Like a Pro
This old-fashioned includes a vanilla simple syrup made with bourbon-smoked sugar from Bourbon Barrel Foods. The addition of a barrel-aged vanilla and chocolate bitters balances things out. By choosing a bourbon with great vanilla, chocolate, and orange notes, you’ll highlight and enhance the whiskey’s inherent flavors.
2 ounces Kentucky bourbon
¼ ounce vanilla simple syrup (recipe follows)
1 dash chocolate bitters
Garnish: orange peel
Combine ingredients in a mixing beaker over ice and stir until well chilled. Serve over a single large ice cube in a rocks glass and garnish with a twist of orange peel.
1 cup water
1 cup Bourbon Barrel Foods bourbon-smoked sugar
1 tablespoon Bourbon Barrel Foods barrel-aged Madagascar vanilla extract
Bring water and bourbon-smoked sugar to a boil. Allow to cool and add vanilla extract. Store in the fridge.
By Susan Reigler, president of Bourbon Women, 2015–2017
We bourbon enthusiasts love to entice our friends and neighbors to join us in the enjoyment of bourbon. Whipping out a long-handled bar spoon and mixing glass to make an old-fashioned or a Manhattan looks impressive and encourages them to ask questions, which in turn lets us teach them about cocktails and bourbon. Sometimes the only thing standing between a bourbon newbie and a passionate bourbon drinker is a little instruction in a fun environment, and a great cocktail can smooth the path.
You can mix bourbon cocktails at home with just a mason jar, a stirrer, and a strainer of some sort, but having the right equipment makes it easier and more fun to create cocktails with consistency. It’s tempting to fall down the rabbit hole of cocktail mixology and acquire too many “necessary” tools (you should see how many shakers and bar spoons I’ve collected), but at its most basic, you need just three things (described in more detail later):
1. Boston cocktail shaker
2. Long-handled bar spoon
3. Hawthorne strainer
Anything else you need already resides in your kitchen. A paring knife, peeler, small cutting board, and hand juicer can easily be recruited for double duty when making whiskey cocktails. Although mixing glasses, muddlers, and electric juicers are nice to have, they’re not required; start with the three basics, and add more items when you’re ready.
Bar Tools for the Home Bourbon Mixologist
COCKTAIL SHAKER
The most basic, must-have piece of equipment is a cocktail shaker. With it, you can make both stirred and shaken cocktails. There are two common types of shakers.
Boston shaker. The staple of bartenders around the world, the Boston shaker consists of a set of two metal tins or one glass tumbler and one metal tin. The best Boston shaker sets have a weighted base to keep the shaking tin upright when you’re pouring the ingredients in, muddling, or fitting on a strainer.
Cobbler shaker. This three-piece shaker includes a mixing glass, a top with a built-in strainer, and a cap. This type of shaker is easy for beginners to use because it doesn’t require an extra strainer. Make sure to wrap a finger or thumb over the cap to keep it secure and to keep the cocktail in the shaker as you shake.
BAR SPOON
The perfect bar spoon has a long handle with a twisted spiral stem and a small, shallow bowl. The best bar spoons are weighted at the end to ensure balance and a smooth motion while stirring. The twisted spiral handle enables you to twist the spoon with a flick of the fingers, letting it glide along the inside of the mixing glass.
STRAINER
There are two main types of strainers.
Hawthorne strainer. The Hawthorne strainer is a flat, paddle-shaped strainer with an attached coil and a small handle. It is used primarily with a Boston shaker. The strainer fits, coil side down, into the cocktail shaker.
Julep strainer. The julep strainer looks like a large, shallow slotted spoon. It fits perfectly in the bowl of a mixing glass.
HANDHELD JUICER
A handheld juicer is essential for any cocktail requiring citrus juice.
MIXING GLASS
Once I had fallen in love with bourbon cocktails, my first bar tool purchase was a mixing glass and a bar spoon. Mixing glasses (sometimes called mixing beakers) are short pitchers with straight sides and a wide, sturdy base to hold the ingredients and ice cubes while leaving enough room for the bar spoon to glide around the interior. There’s nothing like the music of a spoon in a mixing glass as you concoct old-fashioneds or Manhattans. And watching that amber cocktail chill and dilute in the glass is magical.
MUDDLER
The muddler may not be an engineering marvel, but it’s a workhorse when making whiskey smashes, jam cocktails, juleps, and more. Consisting of a small wooden or metal cylinder, the muddler acts like a pestle to agitate herbs and grind spices and sugar in the cocktail shaker. If you don’t have a muddler, the handle of a wooden spoon is an acceptable alternative.
METAL SIEVE
A small, fine metal sieve with a long handle can be used as a secondary method of straining cocktails. If you love whiskey sours and smashes and prefer them clear rather than cloudy, invest in one.
