Quick Guide to Bartending Equipment

Bartending is fun when you have all of the right tools to make it work! There are a lot of different bartending tools, most of the equipment is necessary to make the drinks when you have a full bar. Bartending is fun, and if you know the use of all your tools you will surely impress all of your friends! This is a quick list that you can run through to re-fresh your memory when your having a party. Its good to know your equipment before you start whipping up drinks & this a great refresher!

Bartending Equipment: These tools are necessary for making drinks

1. Measuring jug - these usually come with general, standardized measures. It looks like a trumpet.
2. Measure - A measure can be called a "jigger," and this measures tablespoons and it happens to look a little bit more professional.
3. Cocktail shaker - The shaker is used for drinks that need mixing. It can also be used to cool the drink.
4. Blender or Liquidizer - is good for drinks that need to aerated, and it is also good for drinks that need to be frothy.
5. Ice Bags - are good for keeping nice round pieces of ice oppose to the hard edgy ice that comes out of your home fridge.
6. Ice crusher- you can use a wooden hammer and a towel, or just have a blender if you don't want to go out and get an ice crusher. They both work equally as well.
7. Wooden hammer - used to crush ice.
8. Ice Bag or towel - its to crush ice, and you would generally use the wooden hammer to do this.
9. Ice bucket or chiller bucket - will keep bottles drinks nice and chilled, unless you want to just keep it in the fridge, but that becomes a hassle when everyone continuously opens up the fridge.
10. Mixing pitcher or bar glass - is useful because it is used to mix and stir large amounts of drinks.
11. Muddler - is a long stick that has a bulbous end. It is used for crushing sugar.
12. Bar spoon- long- handled and usually very skinny. This tool is used to reach the tallest tumblers, and is used in jugs, or for mixing drinks directly. They look very fancy, somewhat like a dessert spoon.
13. Strainer - used for pouring drinks from a shaker or mixer without the ice falling into the cup.
14. Corkscrew - the fold up type of corkscrew incorporates a can opener and bottle-top flipper as well as the screw itself.
15. Sharp knife and a squeezer - citrus is the quintessential fruit for many cocktails. Having a sharp knife is good for halving fruits and peeling the skin for decoration.
16. Nutmeg grater -a tiny grater with small holes. It's used for grating nutmeg over drinks like eggnog.
17. Zester and canella knife - these are used for presenting fruit attractively by garnishing the glass.
18. Egg whisk - is used to beat the frothy texture into egg whites before adding it a drink.
19. Straws, swizzle-sticks and cocktail sticks - these items are used to add the finishing touches to a cocktail. Cocktail sticks are purely decorative, and swizzle-stick is useful for stirring a drink.