Basic Bar

There's Many A Man who pays meticulous attention to his I wardrobe, his little black book, or the ordering of a holiday feast, who is woefully and paradoxically indifferent to the state of his equipment and inventory in the bar department. Such a man, after returning to his apartment from an afternoon spent carefully selecting an ulster or greatcoat, may greet a guest with, "I drink gin, but I think there's some Scotch here, if you'd like that." Or, if he has more than two or three visitors, it might be, "Wait a bit, I'll rinse out the bathroom glass so we'll have enough to go around."

These are admittedly aggravated examples of an all-too-common failing -- being inadequately prepared to serve the right drinks, in the right way, at home. The fact is that for the price of a suit or two, or maybe a topcoat, you can have what the bar of the good urban host requires, to wit, the basic glassware, liquor supply and accompanying gadgetry to make your hosting memorable. Of course, we're not suggesting for a moment that you stint on your apparel and haberdashery. We are suggesting that you take your Christmas bonus, or that nice fat check from your maiden Aunt Harriet -- or a modest stipend from your bank account -- and start out properly to equip and stock your bar from scratch. Make a New Year's resolution to throw out the questionable gift bottle of peppermint schnapps left over from last year and the odd assortment of glassware you've somehow accumulated (plus the jelly and peanut butter jars which have been pinch-hitting at your parties). Resolve to get rid of the corkscrew that crumbles corks, the opener that slips its grip on a bottle cap. Start fresh, we say, and do it right. Use the following pages as your guide to the basic needfuls in spirits, glassware, gear. Turn the page and -- Cheers!

Potables

The Fine Art of hosting at the home bar should be part of every well-rounded gentleman's repertory of social graces and accomplishments. Alas, 'tis not always so. One compelling reason for this dismal shortcoming is that the self-appointed in-group that has made barmanship a finicky specialty has duped too many of us into thinking that it is an arcane and intricate subject requiring, at the least, genius and years of study. They have reinforced this false front with jargon and lore, much of it interesting, little of it essential. (We heard one such authority announce, with unctuous condescension, that the sharp edges of ice cubes should be melted to gentle curves before stirring the martini. "Otherwise," said he, "you bruise the gin.")

Nonsense. Expertness can be fun, and it should be fun -- not a scholarly pursuit nor complicated ritual. By the time you're through reading these lines, you'll be as expert as need be.

First things first, then, to wit, spirits. Ranged in the picture on which your left thumb is resting, are choice bottled beverages which comprise a pretty full stock for the bachelor's bar, with each type represented in the recommended initial quantity, about which more in a minute. You'll have favorite brands in some types; you'll probably be an ignorant dolt about others. In such cases, our advice is to stick to the best-known, national brands from major distilleries.

What you'll need for your minimum basic booze supply (top three shelves in the picture) will depend to a large extent on the personal tastes of your friends, and on regional (continued overleaf)Potables (continued) drinking customs. Scotch, for example, isn't very big in the South. Bourbon has more devotees in the Midwest than in the East. But, allowing for these variations, your founding liquor supply (based on national average purchases) should consist of this minimum stock in these proportions: 3 fifths blended American whiskey, 4 fifths straight or bonded bourbon, 2 fifths Scotch, 3 fifths gin, 2 fifths rum, 2 fifths vodka, 1 fifth each straight rye, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, brandy, three liqueurs (for example, green crème de menthe, Southern Comfort, Pernod)--a total of 23 bottles which can cost you as little as $100. (If you live in the East, halve the bourbon, add 2 fifths each of American whiskey and gin.)

Next, increase your basic stock by diversifying within types and by adding new varieties of potables -- a fifth of each for a starter. If, for your basic bar, you selected London gin, get yourself a Holland; if it included Cuban and Jamaican rum, add a Puerto Rican. Etc. Thus, on the basis of your starting booze repertory, you can expand from the following (pictured, left to right, from the wrapped champagne split on the fourth shelf to its mate on the sixth):

Gin--English, Holland.

Rum -- Cuban, Puerto

Rican, Jamaican.

Bourbon -- Kentucky

bonded, Tennessee

sour mash.

Scotch -- light, heavy

bodied.

Vodka -- 80 proof, 100

proof.

Brandy -- calvados, cognac.

Liqueurs -- Drambuie,

Cointreau, white crème

de menthe.

Add to these: A Canadian whiskey.

An Irish whiskey.

6 splits of champagne (for champagne cocktails). (continued) Roughly, another $80 will cover these additional purchases.

(A good rule is to purchase a replacement for each bottle from which a second drink or a second round has been poured; that way you keep ahead of the game painlessly and never run out.)

Now that you're really on your way, you may want to keep going, as occasion and lettuce permit, acquiring the best available with which to gratify discriminating palates and pay the ultimate compliment to your most honored guests. If so, glom on to these (see the final grouping in the picture):

30-year-old Scotch (about $35).

10-year-old bourbon (about $13).

100-year-old brandy (about $40).

Special reserve rum (about $9).

These additional liqueurs: aquavit, crème de cacao, green Chartreuse, kirsch, kümmel, Grand Marnier. Plus anisette, benedictine, triple sec, and any others that take your fancy.

From here on out, you're on your own.

Planning a party? Want to know how far your bottled goods will go? Figure this way: using the standard jigger (1 1/2-ounces) you'll get 17 servings per fifth, 21 servings per quart.

So much for spirits. You will, of course, want mixes and other makings, to wit: bitters, splits and pints of club soda (unless you're giving a party, quarts are apt to go flat before they're used up), cola, ginger ale, 7-Up, tonic. For service before or after meals you'll also want sherry, port, Dubonnet, beer, ale, stout, screwdriver juice and bloody mary juice. And, of course, the groceries: olives, cherries, pearl onions, oranges, lemons, limes.

Four suggestions and that does it:

1) Learn to make these six drinks, the most popular nationally: manhattan, old fashioned, daiquiri, screwdriver, whiskey sour, bloody mary. (You already know how to make a martini and liquor-on-the-rocks.) And play them cool: prechill glassware and remember -- the more ice, the slower the dilution.

2) Don't pretend to an expertise you don't have: you'll be more endearing and your drinks will taste better if you look up the making of a drink you don't know how to assemble. Part of your basic bar equipment should be a book; we recommend Duffy's The Official Mixer's Manual.

3) Equip your bar with ample tools, functional and attractive gear and gadgets like that shown on these pages, which lend style and ease to your barmanship.

4) Ponder these words of H. L. Mencken: "All of the great villainies of history have been perpetrated by sober men, and chiefly by teetotalers. But all of the charming and beautiful things, from The Song of Songs ... to the martini cocktail have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from well water to something with color to it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen."

And be guided accordingly.

Glassware

Dozens of Fascinating volumes have been written about the arts of producing and acquiring glassware. There isn't a reason on earth, though, for you to read any of them -- unless the subject happens to be your hobby. The lore of the drinking vessel is rich, too, and produces such quaint oddities -- genuine or apocryphal -- as these: 1) Your ancestors probably drank mead from the skulls of their enemies; 2) Roman nobles had their wine cups molded from the breasts of their most beautiful hetaerae, hence the shape of the modern wine glass. (If that one's true, the Roman cups must have been bigger than ours -- or the Roman women must have been remarkably deficient in the pectoral region.) But you don't have to know these things, either.

All you do need to know about glass is that fine glassware makes drinking that much more pleasurable, and that if you confine yourself (as you should) to handsome, functional, elegantly shaped glass, you can purchase all you'll require for the modest sum of less than $100. See the chart and let it be your guide.

There was a time when all pressed glass was cloudy and lumpy, when only hand-blown glass was considered worthy of a gentleman's use, when delicacy and decoration were the criteria, when the best glass was imported, when equipping yourself with good glassware could cost the price of a fine car. Not so today. American glass -- and imported, too -- is less expensive and better than it's ever been. What you'll get from that $100 stipend we mentioned is not a "budget beginner's set," but ware worthy of you and your most honored guests, much of it hand blown. Of course, when you get into the area of crystal, prices go forward -- like a kite. But a well-washed glass of good design and structure can be a thing of beauty despite modest cost. Playboy's recommended clutch of glassware should be purchased from open stock so that matching replacements or additions may always be had.

A few tips and we're through: wash all glassware carefully and separately in warm suds; rinse extremely thoroughly; dry with a lint-free towel; never stack in stowing, instead, rank your glassware on your shelves in front-to-back rows by sizes (not with smaller ones in front of tall ones -- a sure road to breakage).

You'll notice that the only wine glassware shown here is for such pre-mealtime sips as sherry, or such post-gustation guzzles as port. Come March, we'll give you the story on wine and other wineware -- but these, too, are subjects susceptible of sensible abbreviation.

For where-to-purchase information, write Janet Pilgrim, Playboy Reader Service, 232 East Ohio Street, Chicago 11.

Hand tools of Barmanship

Basic Glassware -- Kind and Quantity

Decanters, Containers, Shakers and such

Left: Portrait of the basic stock for the bachelor bar in recommended quantities and types, arranged by groups in the preferred order of their acquisition.

1 Outsize, husky chrome bottle opener, $2.75

2 Sterling bottle topper with its own handled cork and no-drip pouring lip, $5.50

3 Hand citrus squeezer with integral strainer, $2.25

4 Thumbscrew bottle sealers for charged mixes, $1.25 for box of three

5 Chrome measurer (half jigger on one side, jigger on the other), bark handle, $10.70

6 Coil-wound professional bartender's cocktail strainer, $1

7 Chrome folding knife, opener, corkscrew combination, $3.50

8 Chrome never-fail corkscrew, employs lever action to gently, firmly, evenly draw cork, $2.50

9 Chrome pourer cap measures exactly one jigger, $2.95

10 Double-ended glass muddler, $1

11 Glass muddler-stirrer, $1

12 Pushbutton tong opens its jaws to grab one ice cube, $7.50

13 Long-handled chrome bar spoon-stirrer, $1.10

14 Chrome bottle decapper has magnet which keeps cap from dropping, $3.50

15 Chrome cocktail strainer, $1.25

16 Danish teak and stainless steel knife-cum-opener, bar spoon, $7.25 for both

17 Danish teak and stainless steel knife-cum-opener, bar spoon, $7.25 for both

18 Pushbutton olive or cherry grabber, $3.50

19 Extra-long Swedish glass muddler, $1.25. Take your choice.

6 Standard Old Fashioned

6 Double Old Fashioned

6 Beer Mug

6 Pilsner

The Basic Six. Top row, left to right--Whiskey Sour: 1/2 jigger lemon juice, 1 jigger whiskey, 1 teaspoon sugar; shake with cracked ice, strain, garnish with cherry, 1/2 orange slice. Glassware, top row l to r: Steuben, Boda "Colonnade." Steuber.

Manhattan: 1 jigger whiskey, 1/2 jigger vermouth (French or Italian for dry or sweet), dash Angostura (optional); stir with ice, strain over cherry. Glassware, top row l to r: Steuben, Boda "Colonnade." Steuber.

Bloody Mary (Eastern style): 1 jigger vodka, 2 jiggers tomato juice, 1/3 jigger lemon juice, 2 dashes Worcestershire, dash Tabasco; shake with cracked ice, strain. Glassware, top row l to r: Steuben, Boda "Colonnade." Steuber

Bottom row--Old Fashioned: 1 lump sugar, 3 dashes Angostura, 1 jigger whiskey, 1/2 jigger water; muddle sugar with bitters and water in glass, add two ice cubes, whiskey, stir a bit, twist lemon rind above glass, garnish with cherry, 1/2 orange slice. Bottom row: Fostoria, Heisey "Country Club," Boda "Colonnade."

Screwdriver: 3 jiggers or more (to taste) orange juice over ice cubes; stir in 1 jigger vodka Bottom row: Fostoria, Heisey "Country Club," Boda "Colonnade."

Daiquiri: 1-1/2 jiggers light rum, juice 1/2 lime, 1 teaspoon sugar; shake with cracked ice until shaker frosts, strain. Bottom row: Fostoria, Heisey "Country Club," Boda "Colonnade."

12 Standard Highball

6 Delmonico

8 Hollow-Stem Champagne

8 Cocktail

4 Brandy Pony

6 Cordial

4 Shot Glass

6 Wine Glass

4 Brandy Snifter

4 Brandy Inhaler

1 Soda King charges liquids with CO2 cartridges, $15

2 Crystal and sterling bitters bottles, $9 each

3 Laminated cutting board, magnet holds matching knife, $4.50

4 Oak baby wine barrel (with cream sherry or tawny port), personalized name plate, about $13

5 Chunky martini maker and stirrer, $5

6 "Fire extinguisher" cocktail shaker, brass and copper, $22.50

7 High-polish Britannia metal water pitcher, built-in strainer, $27.50

8 Brass pouring cradle, $15

9 "Milk bottle" shaker, $2

10 Chrome and bamboo ice bucket, $45

11 Martini maker and stirrer, $2.50

12 Two-piece professional's cocktail shaker, glass and chrome, $4

13 Capacious ice keeper in brass and copper, $35

14 Pitcher-shaker, built-in ice tube, $11

15 Brass and crystal padlocked decanters with labels and siphon tops that measure one jigger, $100

16, 16A Blendor and adapting ice cruncher, $44.95 and $16.95.

16, 16A Blendor and adapting ice cruncher, $44.95 and $16.95.