With colder weather approaching and social distancing guidelines relegating most of our festivities to domestic gatherings, it’s no wonder that the home-bar is getting an extra dose of love this Fall holiday season. For most of us without the luxury of hiring a professional bartender, playing home-tender becomes one of those tricky juggling acts that can quickly dominate your list of hosting duties. Here, a thoughtful and strategically executed self-serve bar comes to the rescue, freeing up your time, energy, and oh-so limited pandemic sanity to tend to your VIPs. 

 

Still, there is a fine logistical art to the perfect self-serve bar that balances a thoughtful selection of offerings, economy of flow, and mise-en-place, ensuring an ergonomic, efficient, and elegantly bounteous beverage banquette. Here are some suggestions to ensure that your party-goers are left satisfyingly soused, without overcrowding or overcomplicating your libation-station.

 

1. Plan for thrills... and spills

 

As long as there are liquids (and cocktailing) involved, be prepared that drinks may be toppled: your bar might fall victim to more than just a few incidental spills. Build your bar atop any non-porous easy-to-clean surface (such as your kitchen countertop), far away from expensive upholstery, carpets, or fabrics. If you’d rather have guests abstain from the kitchen, a sturdy resin folding table is both portable and cleanable, and can be upscaled with a fancy tablecloth. Just be wary that adjacent walls might be prone to a little splatter.

 

If you are dead-set on using that vintage hand-me-down heirloom hardwood console, protect its surface first with a layer of trash bags held in place with painter’s tape before overlaying with linen. Choose a dark-colored table drape to obscure inevitable liquid accidents of the red wine variety. Also, reinforce the work-area with absorbent bar mats, rags, kitchen towels, or water-resistant placemats.

 

2. Check your Peripherals 

 

Besides refreshments, your self-serve bar should include a thoughtful selection of hospitality essentials to ensure guests have access to everything they need in one convenient location. Here is a quick checklist of some common essentials:

 

• Corkscrew & Bottle Opener

• Cocktail Napkins

• Chill tub/bucket for cold beverages

• Ice Bucket & Ice Scoop

• Trash/Recycling receptacle for garbage and empty bottles

• Cups/Glassware

• Garnish receptacles

• Garnish Tongs and Serving Pieces

• Pitchers, Bottles, and Carafes

• Optional: Jigger, Shaker Set, Mixing Glass, Bar Spoon, Reusable Straws

 

3. Keep it (elegantly) minimal

 

If you don’t have a professional bartender on staff, it isn’t advisable to offer full cocktail service. Unless your guests are seasoned barflies with mixological know-how, your bar risks being overcrowded with liqueurs and mixers; furthermore, the additional time it takes to properly prepare a cocktail means more time spent hoarding limited bar space, not to mention incorrectly made drinks, a higher risk of spillage, and a potential waste of good spirits.

 

Instead, mix and match some of these ideas to streamline your mixological menu:

           

       Beer & Wine

• Offer a solid red and white wine option, and up to 2 kinds of beers. Keep your whites and beers chilled in a leakproof chill tub (a regular ice cooler does the trick), and store backups in your refrigerator. Whites can be substituted or augmented with sparkling wine, and during the warmer months, a sensible Rose is always a welcome delight. 

• If you harbor expensive pieces of furniture in your party pad, withhold on serving the red to avoid embarrassing stains and an expensive cleaning bill.

• To ensure thorough chilling, submerge your canned and bottled beverages in an ice bath for at least 40 minutes prior to the start of your event. If you’re looking for a fast-chill option, stashing bottles in the freezer for up to an hour prior does the trick, but check on them before they freeze and inadvertently explode inside your refrigerator.

• Condensation on the outside of your chill-tub causes drip (especially if it’s metal), so do place an absorbent towel underneath the tub to soak up the pooling.

 

       Liquor

• While you might be inclined to show off your extensive liquor collection, it is not necessary to offer every single type of liquor for guest consumption.

• Start with vodka, tequila, and bourbon, and size-up your offerings by adding a London Dry gin, and a sensible single-malt Scotch. Unless you’re hosting a Daiquiri Discoteque, feel free to skip the rum, and omit any liqueurs unless they are key ingredients of your signature themed cocktail (more below).

• Keep your display visually organized by arranging your spirits from light to dark with labels facing out for easy identification. Remove the caps from the bottles beforehand and stash them aside to expedite the ease of drink-making.

 

       Cocktails

• For cocktail aficionados, offering a signature drink can make a delightful addition to your house menu, although anything more than a single offering might overcomplicate your set-up.

• If your signature cocktail is built over ice (eg.: Negronis, Mules, Old Fashions), set out the constituent ingredients at the bar with corresponding instructions on how to make the drink.

• If your cocktail is prepared by shaking or stirring (eg.: Sours, Martinis, Manhattans), consider pre-batching your cocktail for fast dispensing. Depending on the style of your cocktail, you might want to take dilution into account when calculating your batching recipe.

• Alternatively, save yourself the mixological math and offer your guests a selection of canned craft cocktails that can be kept aside in a refrigerator, or displayed alongside your beer and wine in your chill tub.

 

Mixers

• Even when not serving hard liquor, mixers provide essential nonalcoholic options for those skipping out on the sauce, and for others taking a break between quaffers.

• Offer a basic line of carbonated beverages: Club Soda, Cola, Diet Cola, Lemon-Lime Soda, Tonic, and Ginger Ale. Utilizing larger bottle sizes (eg. 1L or 1.5L bottles) reduces bartop clutter and minimizes trash.

• Prepare a selection of juices, such as orange, cranberry, grapefruit, and pineapple juice (if you’re feeling tropical). Store them in glass stopper-bottles or carafes, and stash them in a chill bucket on ice – no one enjoys warm juice!

 

       Garnishes

• Set receptacles of lemon and lime slices available at your bar, alongside mini serving tongs. Prepare the slices an hour beforehand, and stash them in the refrigerator covered with plastic wrap until just a few moments before the party.

• For a touch of class, patronize your local florist for insta-worthy orchid heads (perfect for that Tiki Soiree), or scour your grocery shop for an array of eye-catching edible florals to add a natural burst of color to your beverages.

• Steer clear of leafy green garnishes (eg. Basil or Mint). These garnishes tend to be temperature sensitive, finicky, and volatile. PPO enzymatic action causes them to wilt and brown over the course of an evening’s event, imparting an unpleasant bitterness to drinks.

• Instead, utilize drier, more robust herbs such as Rosemary and Thyme. Dried or dehydrated fruit and spices such as Persimmons, dehydrated Oranges, Star Anise, and Cinnamon Sticks also make excellent additions to your array.

 

4. Focus on the flow

 

When mapping the mise-en-place of your self-serve bar, be mindful of how the flow of your guests affects the position of your elements. Conceive of your station as a one-way assembly line, where guests move from one position to the next, adding ingredients along the way to complete their drink.

 

If you are serving beer, wine, and liquor at your bar, consider placing your beer/wine and liquor stations in separate areas to avoid guests competing for space. Additionally, if you find yourself short on bar space, utilize risers and tiers of differing heights to capitalize vertical space and incorporate levels of visual interest to your display.

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