14 Home-Bar Hacks From Famous Mixologists

Bourbon
Anthony Humphreys/Thrillist
Anthony Humphreys/Thrillist

When making cocktails at home, it can feel like you're always one adult crayon short of a box. That's why we consulted some of the biggest names in the cocktail industry to up your home-bartending game. Their responses range from common sense tips on what to stock to a very inventive use of the Solo cup. Soon enough, Tom Cruise will have nothing on you.

Flickr/Mike McCune

Play with flavored syrups or infusions

"Tea is wonderful in cocktails, especially punches. Brew a strong tea, then add sugar (1:1 is a good start). Be careful when infusing tea directly into distilled spirits, especially more oxidized teas like darker oolongs or black teas. The astringency can grow very strong very quickly. It's more forgiving to make a syrup or infuse into a lower-proof mixer, like vermouth. Likewise, spices like clove and cardamom are incredibly assertive, so use them in smaller quantities than spices like coriander or cinnamon." -- Joaquín Simó, Pouring Ribbons (New York, NY)
 

Learn to make a simple sour

"Measure out 2 cups of lemon and lime, exactly the same amount of simple syrup, stir it together, and you've got a sour mix." -- Dale "King Cocktail" DeGroff(West Hempstead, NY)

Flickr/Pleuntje

Learn to make a real punch

"To make Oleo-saccharum, you take four lemons' peels, an orange, cover them in about 8oz of sugar, and leave it in a Mason jar over night. Then shake it up and it'll turn it into a slurry. Don't put it in the fridge until the next morning. You want the sugar to be room temp when it works. The sugar will wick all of the oil out of the peels, so you're creating this wonderful base. It'll stay for a week or two in the refrigerator. Then when you want to make a punch, add port, whiskey, lemon juice, and water. It's something you can pull out at the last minute." -- DeGroff
 

Experiment once a week

"Experiment with a different syrup, shrub, or infusion once a week. Go to a farmers market and grab some fresh fruit or herbs and include those." -- Kris Rizzato, Bankers Hill Bar and Restaurant (San Diego, CA)

Flickr/Suzette

Grow a cocktail garden

“An herb garden is something that's very low maintenance; you don't need soil or a yard or ambition to be a cocktail gardener. For the price of a bundle of basil or mint, you can get a starter and put it in the ground and grow it for years. I love basil because it makes a great garnish: take any sour cocktail and you add basil to it, you've got a whole new drink. Rosemary is awesome because it's so heat tolerant, and lemon verbena is a really cool cocktail flavor that people don't automatically know. Mexican mint marigold is great because it has that slightly anise flavor, so it can pass for fennel or something harder to grow.” -- David Alan, Tipsy Texan(Austin, TX)
 

Buy non-perishables in bulk

“Stock up on bottled sodas, tonics, and ginger beers. They give you the option for something quick.” -- Jason Kosmas, The 86 Co. and Employees Only (New York City)

Flickr/Roco Julie

Use household ingredients

"Look around the house. You can always find a few interesting flavor pairings. If all you can find is a bottle of vodka in back of the freezer, stuff it with peppercorns from the cupboard. This makes a great base for Bloody Marys in the morning and delightfully peppered martinis to wind down the night." -- Daniel Marohnic, Commonwealth (Las Vegas, NV)
 

Host a gin & tonic bar

“One easy way to create a lot of variation with a level of simplicity is to get a couple of gins, a couple of tonics, and a bunch of different garnishes. Then your guests can just put them together in a glass.” -- Kosmas

Wikipedia

Recycle leftover wine

"Rather than tossing out last night's unfinished wine, toss it in a bowl with some fruit, a little sugar, and maybe some brandy. Put it in the fridge and forget about it until tomorrow. Add some club soda and enjoy with brunch!" -- Marohnic 
 

Master "fancies" and "improveds"

"Take a glass of spirit on some ice (whiskey, aged rum, or if you're a real oddball like myself, some Metaxa) and hit it with a dash or three of whatever bitters you keep handy and a healthy splash of liqueur. Wild Turkey rye, Cointreau, and Angostura? Delightful. Metaxa, Maraschino, and Chinese five spice? Yeah, you know that's gonna be tasty. Some Havana Club 7 Year, ouzo, and Peychaud's? As delicious as it is questionably legal. Look, I'm not gonna do all your work for you. The whole point is that it's always an adventure of discovery and wonderment. Feel free to hashtag as #blindtending." -- Justin Elliott, The Townsend (Austin, TX)

Anthony Humphreys/Thrillist

Use Solo cups to measure

Use the lines of Solo cups to measure... for example, if you wanted to make a Cuba Libre, "Just add lime juice to the first line, a dash of bitters, rum to the second line, then top with ice and Mexican Coke." -- Jackson Cannon, Eastern Standard (Boston, MA)
 

Score some bartender's ketchup

"St. Germain really has become bartender's ketchup, because it works in so many different things. The bottle is really beautiful, and you can just slip it into a lot of stuff. It's an additional flavor that's really pleasing." -- DeGroff

Andrew Zimmer/Thrillist

Master your favorites, then tweak them

"I think it’s very important to master the classic cocktails. Especially having the right ingredients at all times. If you like Cosmos, that requires citrus vodka, Cointreau, fresh limes, and cranberry juice -- you should always have those ingredients. Master it, and once you have it down, begin to tweak the recipe." -- Tony Abou-Ganim, The Modern Mixologist

Spruce up wine

"Everybody forgets about Cassis, but since wine-style drinks are becoming popular again, get a good bottle of Cassis from Burgundy, where it was invented. There's some reasonably priced bottles on the market that make for great summertime cocktails like a Champagne Cassis." -- DeGroff

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Dan Gentile is a staff writer on Thrillist's national food and drink team. His personal home bartending hack is a quarter ounce of anything to a gin and tonic. Follow him to a fridge full of half-juiced limes at @Dannosphere.