Making Cocktails as a Beginner – What You Need to Know

Bringing the cocktail bar into your home is a great idea, especially if you enjoy entertaining. Most people love a cocktail as there are many flavours to choose from, to appeal to all tastes. However, if you like the idea of making cocktails at home, you need to have an idea about what equipment you will need and what sort of liquor you should buy.

If you want to know more about hospitality in general, so you can be a good hostess or maybe consider a career in the industry, you may want to study for a Certificate 3 in Commercial hospitality at Courses. If your interest is solely in cocktails, there is some information that it's useful for you to know, as a beginner.

Making Cocktails as a Beginner – What You Need to Know

What equipment will you need?

If you want to be able to make cocktails like they do in your local bar, you need certain items of equipment including:

• A shaker.

It's a good idea to choose a shaker which has a shaking tin and a mixing glass. This means that you can use the glass when making cocktails such as Martinis which should be stirred.

• Strainers.

These strainers are useful for stopping bits of ice or fruit from floating around in your cocktails. The most commonly used are a Hawthorne strainer and a tea strainer.

• Barspoon.

Barspoons make stirring easier and can be used to measure. It does not matter which barspoon you choose as long as it has some length and a twist to it.

• Measure.

You should never just guess how much alcohol you are using. Your cocktails will taste better if you use a measure and you will be able to gauge exactly how much you and your guests have had to drink.

• Glasses.

It's a good idea to have a range of different glasses available, such as Martini glasses, highball glasses and champagne flutes.

What liquor should you use?

In order to decide what liquor you should invest in, you need to think about which cocktails you enjoy. For instance, you will need tequila and Cointreau for a Margarita and gin and vermouth for Martinis. If you are serious about improving your cocktail making skills, there are many different recipes you can try. Simply choose the liquor you need to buy accordingly.

Once you have your equipment and liquor, you are ready to go. Remember to chill the glasses you are going to use. Ideally, any ingredients you are using should also be chilled. It's also worth remembering that a cocktail needs plenty of ice; so there is enough water to dilute it and so the drink is lovely and cool. When you have measured your ingredients in the glass part of the shaker you are using, you should then fill the rest of the shaker with ice, before you shake. Putting all of this information to use, you should be able to create great tasting cocktails that will go down well with guests.