Gentleman's Classic Bar

The whole thing started with martini's. EVO and I started talking via email about what one needed to have a small bar that would serve many of the classic cocktails. My knowledge of the classics is pretty much limited to the names, but he seems to know them all by heart. Over the course of a month, or so, the list of ingredients firmed up, and we independently wondered how small of a box it could be dumped into for travel to a con. I pointed out how I love the ornate Japanese picnic boxes, but EVO thought that a bit overboard. I had to agree, but decide to work
on something as a surprise. The bar is the result.

The bar is designed around ingredient list and the bottles for them. We have
booze: Gin, Rum, Bourbon, Rye.
Mixers: Sweet and Dry Vermouth, Gomme syrup, Soda, and Bitters.
Stuff in jars: Olives, Maraschino cherries, Sugar cubes, Mint
Fruit: Lemon, Lime, Orange.


I started out with the bottles. Digging about on the tubes, I found places that sell "Boston Rounds" in various sizes. One place had matching small jars, and an eye dropper bottle. The eye dropper bottle was just too perfect for the bitters. I studied the measurements, and decided on a tentative layout.

Things were looking ok, so I ordered the bottles. When the bottles were in hand, I pushed them about a bit and decided that it would all work. Initial mock-ups were started with cardboard, and then cheap wood and hot glue.

During the mock-up phase I also had to locate the equipment. The swing out doors have two glasses, stirring spoon (missing in the photo, it was still in the dishwasher), knife, and muddler to the right. Juicer, strainer, jigger, and shaker to the left. These were found over several weeks and caused minor redesigns as I went along. Not quite equipment, but the drawer was sized to hold the fruit, and yes, I took a tape measure to the grocery store and measured a bunch to see what the typical sizes were.

Hardware was examined and much dithering occurred. There's a fair pile of stuff I bought and gave up on. Various brass hinges that were the wrong size, a lock that didn't work out, hasps that were bought as an 'if all else fails' option, and so on.

I think the building of the box took about a month. A frightening number of mistakes were made, but the pile of wasted wood is really pretty small; I was mostly able to re-purpose any mistakes to something else. All in all it
was mostly fun and got me to dig out woodworking skills that had sat unused for the last 30 years. It's really not quite finished, there are some tweaks to be done, but they'll probably wait for a very long time.

The drink list is:
Daiquiri (original form)
Manhattan
Martini
Mint Julep
Old Fashioned
Whiskey Sour
Tom Collins
Gin Fizz
Mojito
Gimlet