Cocktail recipes
Bar food

Alcohol
The real basis of any at-home bar is a variety of alcoholic beverages that can be enjoyed alone or blended into cocktails. You should start with the staples (focusing on drinks that you particularly like), but it’s great to keep trying new things while you’re out so that your own selection at home will grow and change over time.

• Wine
  No one’s expecting you to dig deep below your apartment and create a full-fledged cellar, but it’s not a bad idea to have a few bottles of red, white, and bubbly on hand. Select wines that you enjoy and think about creating your own "house wines" by buying favorites by the case — you’ll save money and will always have a bottle around. Plus, you’ll be prepared next time you’re invited for dinner but don’t have time to go to the store!
• Beer
  If you often have friends over who love the local microbrew or a couple cans of Sapporo with tempura, it’s good to keep a spare six-pack of beer in the fridge. Many stores allow you to mix and match, so you can buy an assortment that will allow everyone to choose their favorite brew. Most people like relatively light lagers and ales, but you can include a couple wheat beers, stouts, and even a rasberry or cherry lambic to keep things interesting. Hard cider also roughly falls into this category and many fans of fruitier drinks love either the pear or apple kinds. Sake is technically a beer and if you love to eat and serve Japanese food, you should start to experiment with some of the premium sake brands that are making their way to the US now — high quality sake should be served slightly chilled or at room temperature as warming it actually dulls the flavor.
• Spirits
  To be able to make nearly any cocktail, you should have gin, rum, vodka, whiskey, and tequila in your stash. Buy decent brands, but don’t go for the super-premium for mixers. For sipping, you should really try and get the best of class — try different types at restaurants and bars and talk to bartenders to get a better sense of what you like and might want to offer. If you absolutely hate tequila or adore different types of flavored vodkas, make this selection match your personal tastes — it’s good to keep some things around for friends and family, but your bar should also reflect your own tastes. There’s a whole world of single-malt whiskeys, brandies, cognacs, and armagnacs that you can get into for after-dinner drinks, but they may be beyond the scope of the real bar basics unless you’re a fan.
• Liqueurs
  Spirits flavored with herbs, fruit, flowers and other plant-life and often sweetened or blended with cream, liqueurs are star players in many cocktails and make great aperitifs or after-dinner drinks on their own. If you like to add a shot of Bailey’s to coffee or enjoy a glass of port after dinner, make sure to have a small assortment to help draw out post-dinner conversations. Some other choices would include ouzo, Grand Marnier, Amaretto, Frangelico, Chambord, and framboise.

Mixers
If you want to get into the cocktail game, there are some essential mixers that you should always have around: assorted sodas (cola and ginger ale are common mixers), soda water, tonic water, and a variety of fruit, citrus, and tomato juices. You may have guests who prefer soft drinks and they shouldn’t be limited to the Bloody Mary mix. Keep bottles in the pantry and store concentrated juices in the freezer if you’re short on refrigerator space. Add to that list fresh lemons, limes, bitters, pepper, coarse salt, sour mix, simple syrup (sugar mixed with water), and light cream and you’ve got the makings for lots of different drinks.

Special Garnishes
To make cocktails that everyone will remember, take that extra step to think of great garnishes for presentation and flavor. Of course a slice of lemon or lime adds zest to many drinks, but you can also think about berries, mint, cucumbers, pineapple, olives, lychees, cocktail onions, etc. You can earn kitsch points here by skewing your garnishes on frilly toothpicks or plastic swords or plopping in a paper umbrella or plastic monkey. You can also add visual interest and flavor by rimming the glass with sugar, cocoa, or other powdery substances — moisten the rim by running a lime, lemon, orange, or even just a bit of water around it and dip it into a small bowl of the coating.

Tools of the Trade and Glassware
Basic tools for the bar include a blender, bottle opener, corkscrew, citrus juicer, and something to stir with. If you want to get even fancier, you should invest in a shaker, a coil-rim bar strainer, a jigger to measure out liquids, a juicer, an ice bucket, and a nice pitcher.

Once you’ve got your bar fully stocked and ready for service, you probably won’t want to serve your fancy drinks in mismatched glasses and chipped coffee mugs. Now’s the time to make an investment in some key glassware. Tall glasses, short glasses, champagne glasses, white and red wine glasses, and beer glasses are the basics, although you can choose to add to that list other items such as brandy snifters, martini glasses, shot glasses, margarita glasses, and tulip-shaped cups for whiskey.

The number of people you have over on a regular basis should dictate the amount of glasses you purchase—if you mostly entertain for four or fewer, there’s no great reason to get the set of 12. In emergencies or for larger parties, you can always borrow glassware, buy extras, or make do with what you have. Since the look and feel of glassware can really make or break a drink (try to imagine sipping fine champagne from a cheap plastic cup), do some research for brands that are right for your budget and test to see how they feel in your hand.