A quick survey of my home bar reveals six bottles of gin. There’s nearly double that of bourbon. Three bottles of vodka. Around seven bottles of scotch. Somehow I’ve acquired nearly a half dozen rums. Don’t get me started on amaro (amari… plural?). I only have two apiece for tequila, mezcal, and cognac. A few assorted liqueurs. I keep forgetting to buy yellow chartreuse. One bottle of Japanese whisky. It’s… not a lot, but at the same time some people find it kind of impressive.
The bar was the first thing I brought with me to my new apartment, after an air mattress. Anxiety, coupled with the stress of a move, has a weird way of fixating on one specific thing. I told whoever was helping me move whenever the opportunity arose that I needed to have the bar set up if I was going to feel remotely comfortable in my new apartment.
Then my best friend gave me the honest truth: Your bar is living in a pre-Covid world.
In a strict sense, she’s right. Part of the reason I wanted to have the bar brought up first was because I fixated on what would happen if someone came over and I couldn’t make them a drink. Hospitality being my industry and passion, the thought gave me more anxiety than the fact I was sleeping on a deflating air mattress. But that’s, of course, ridiculous. I’ve only had my brother and his fiancée over, we had lived in the same house previously, and a different friend, after a quarantine period. I’m not throwing parties (never really did, come to think of it), or inviting strangers over just yet (dating in the world of Covid is weird). But I knew that, if any of these things happened, I wanted to be able to make someone a drink.
Sure, a bar like the one I have makes for a few good Instagram pictures (and blog posts, obviously). There are some bottles I’ve bought out of curiosity, or because of reviews (shame, shame, shame, I know, but I’m learning). Many of them come from that drive to learn more. I’m young in my industry, and apart from my past year and change working the floor I’m entirely self-taught. I say that not to toot my own horn, but to partially explain my drive to grab bottles of this and that over the past four years (because, of course, I was not drinking before 21). My mother was a Tanqueray and tonic girl, and my father never really drank apart from an occasional corona. Conspicuously, I suppose, there is not a bottle of Tanqueray in my collection.
I do drink, of course. That’s not a surprise to anyone. Variety is nice, but variety in the form of 12 bottles of bourbon is a kind of variety no one person can consume regularly. I stick to the bottles and cocktails I like more often than not at home, and I’ve written a series before on the drinks I make for myself. I drift from those from time to time, depending on mood and weather. The bottle of Lagavulin I have is rarely-touched in my day-to-day, but eagerly pulled down when required. The same goes for the fernet. Last night I had a death in the afternoon, but I’m not going to have a glass of absinthe every night.
But there’s another aspect my bar’s pre-Covid mindset beyond my sudden inability to entertain, and that’s the fact that plenty of the bottles I own are from what now seems a different era. There’re three bottles from the St. Augustine Distillery from a visit to the best friend now judging my bar on New Year’s (is it really STILL 2020?). Three of those bottles of bourbon are from even earlier, a visit to bourbon country back when I still lived a mere five-hour drive from it. Rum from an even more local distillery in North Carolina. Another rum from Bully Boy in Boston. I used to take almost weekly trips to Boston. I haven’t been since February. What bottles remain have stood the test of time, and a slow drinking pattern, but speak to an era where one could just go out and get them.
To be sure, plenty aren’t. I won’t say that I panic bought alcohol… but I definitely grew my collection out of boredom the past few months. Sometimes, as I’ve mentioned, out of curiosity, too. I drank a bit more mezcal and those two bottles are two I particularly enjoyed. More and more bourbons appeared, as did gins, as they’re my go-to spirits. I went on an amaro(i?) spree after buying the book about them and trying to make my own in the depths of quarantine (mixed results).
In that sense, my bar is now a Frankenstein’s monster of pre and post Covid collecting, in addition to the gifts I’ve received from friends and family. It’s a testament to what travel I did before, of the people around me who care for me and my interests, and a monument to the depths of boredom I fell into during. It’s ready to entertain a crowd I hope I will someday be able to host, but is more than serviceable for an after-work drink (often much needed). It still feels incomplete, but then I’ve a mind of a collector (notice my distinct lack of information regarding how many wine bottles hide in my apartment).
A home bar, in as much as it’s reflective of its owner (and it is), may therefore also represent their attitude towards satisfaction, at least in relation to drinking habits. Some will be perfectly happy with whatever they have to drink however they like, but even that is undercut by just how varied drinking preferences are. A home bar, in that sense, is never really complete because we as people never really are. We’re changing, we’re learning, developing new tastes and foregoing old ones. I don’t think I’m ever going to be happy with my bar, however many bottles I own. It’s that same odd drive of wanting to be ready for anything, to be able to make anyone who walks through my door happy, and to always try new things.
And I still need a bottle of yellow chartreuse…