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Stocking Up
How to better your summer bar cart.
By Erin Moore
A cocktail is much more than just booze in a glass. As such, your bar cart should reflect that idea and hold more drink staples and accoutrements than just booze.
Your fridge can and should be home to ingredients that are essential for many drinks, such as simple syrup. Simple syrup is just one-to-one parts sugar and water, boiled to thick cohesion. You can easily (as in, 15 minutes) make interesting syrups by steeping the mixture with items such as flowers, herbs and spices.
If you want fruity bevs, whip out your citrus squeezer and gather your lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits—whatever! Fresh juice makes for truly great cocktails, but if you don't want a citrusy, acidic zing, look into shrubs. Use sugar, high-quality vinegar—like a good apple cider vinegar—and any fruit, veggies, flowers or herbs of choice to make a bright, acidic syrup additive that's as at home in a cocktail as it is mixed with soda water.
Don't wanna make it yourself? Look for locals Drupefruit Shrubs at Central 9th Market (161 W. 900 South, SLC), Animalia (280 E. 900 South, SLC), Boozetique (315 E. 300 South, SLC) and Curiosity (145 E. 900 South, SLC).
At room temp, your bar cart can host a bevy of mixers and ingredients, namely vermouth and liqueurs. Vermouth can live unopened on your bar cart, but once opened, it needs to migrate to the fridge door. As for liqueurs, there are really too many to list here, but many cocktails employ them.
Orange-flavored liqueurs like Cointreau, Grand Marnier and Curaçao are essential to many drinks, and you've definitely had them in margaritas. There are also botanicals like St. Germain, which tastes like elderflower, and sweet, strong absinthe, which tastes like licorice (look for the brand Absente on State Liquor Store shelves).
There is also the amaro family, which are herbal liqueurs. Often aromatic and bitter, they can be used as stomach-calmers before or after meals, and they're delicious in drinks like Aperol Spritz, or minty Fernet-Branca cocktails like a Hanky Panky.
Another must-have on your bar cart should be bitters. If you're an Old Fashioned fan, you likely already know about the magic of the most basic and essential of bitters, angostura, which is also the most called-for in cocktail recipes. Bitters help to bring out the best in a drink's other elements, plus offer a punch of flavor essence.
Imagine with your mind's tongue what celery or spiced orange bitters would do for a drink. There are so many experimental craft bitters companies out there these days, and some of the best selections can be found locally at Caputo's (multiple locations, SLC), Boozetique and Liberty Heights Fresh (1290 S. 1100 East, SLC). Look for Scrappy's Bitters, Workhorse Rye and Bitters Lab (a local).
Finally, to make your cocktail into something more than just liquor in a glass, you need to dilute it with ice. That's where shaker tins, bar spoons for stirring, strainers and even that novelty pint glass you got from Oktoberfest come in. You can get everything but the commemorative glass at Boozetique.
Happy bar-cart building!
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