What liquors do you need for your home bar? Prices do not include bottle, can, or keg deposit.Ĥ. *All beer prices from Website, accessed (local pickup option). Stout (Guinness is good to have around for a variety of reasons).Light (Heineken is OK as is Amstel and Sam Adams).I have found that keeping the following styles of beer on-hand will please most beer drinkers: By forgoing the keg, you can buy six-packs of a few different styles of beer, thus ensuring you have the right beer for each guest. While you may love a particular beer enough to want to drink five gallons of it, your friends and family may not be so inclined. Just don’t try to convince your wife it’s cheaper than bottles and cans.Īnother factor that tilts the scales toward bottles and cans is variety. So if having draft beer in your home bar will make you happy, then by all means go for it.

Add to that the fact that you’ll need hardware (about $500 for a kegerator or $150 for a keg fridge conversion kit and ongoing CO2 refills) and the kegs quickly lose their luster. Well, color me surprised! Keg beer in each of these examples is actually *more* expensive! That just ain’t right. If you decide to go with draft beer in your home bar will it really save you money? Let’s look at a few beers for a quick comparison*: A lot of home draft is dispensed from 5-gallon kegs, so you’re looking at about 40 pints of beer from each one (probably a few less due to foam, etc).

In order to help you decide, you need to determine if you can drink enough before it spoils-beer dispensed from a keg with CO2 lasts about three to four weeks depending on the variety. I struggled with this one myself for quite a while. If Jimmy loves PBR and uncle Bob a good smoky Scotch, you should have them both covered (provided they’ll be over frequently enough, of course).

What do your friends and family like to drink?Īre your friends more interested in beer pong or pre-prohibition era cocktails? How about your uncle Bob and cousin Jimmy? A good bartender can please any guest no matter how discerning or unsophisticated. If you love tiki drinks, then you’ll want to ensure you have the requisite liqueurs.Ģ. If that means fresh beer on tap, then so be it. Whatever it is, this is an important query to ponder, because as much fun as it is to entertain your friends, this bar is really for you-make sure you have everything to make yourself happy. Maybe it’s a gin and tonic, maybe it’s a widely distributed beer. This is the thing you order when you go to a bar of unspecified quality-it’s your port in a storm. After all is said and done you’ll have a shopping list and a budget for your new home bar.Įveryone has a favorite drink or two. Let’s go through each one of these questions individually. What cocktail recipe books do you need?.What syrups and bottled garnishes do you need?.What do your friends and family like to drink?.Here are some questions to ponder before creating your shopping list for liquors, mixers, glassware and hardware: What you need of course depends on a number of factors. Today I enter the fray with a list of my own at the request of a friend. There are a lot of articles and opinions on what you actually *need* when setting up a home bar.

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